


The Desert

by Happyorogeny



Series: The Drow [10]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Genre: Alcohol, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Civil War, Explicit Sexual Content, Human Trafficking, M/M, Mention of - Freeform, Neck trauma, Slave Trade, bandits, dragon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2020-07-12 19:38:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 58,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19951741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happyorogeny/pseuds/Happyorogeny
Summary: There are many seasons in the wasteland, and many dangers. Jarlaxle and Artemis escape to the surface, but draw the ire of zealot paladins led by a silver dragon.





	1. Prologue

Jarlaxle sat outside the tent on the first night, absolutely enraptured by the sky. Artemis could not bring himself to care so much, though the dangers of the desert were many. The drow was probably more wicked than any two-copper bandit. Like as not he would wake up to find Jarlaxle had conquered all the local highwaymen, organised them into a guild and was taking a portion of their earnings. 

Much as he tried to tamp it down, a fragile kind of joy rose up in his chest at the sound of the wind traveling over the desert, at the scent of night flowers, the sight of the sky overhead. To be out of those grim caves, crueler than any place he had ever known, that was...he didn’t much like how that happiness felt. As if it were some blooming desert rose, its petals filling up his lungs so that he couldn’t quite catch his breath. 

Had Jarlaxle poisoned him somehow? No, he would have noticed such a thing. The journey up from the underdark had simply been long, too long. The day had been long. The week, the month, his whole life, longer than he had expected it to be. 

As was his habit he woke partway through the night and was greeting by the sound of someone singing, low and soft. It was not often that he was given to artistic interest. What use was song or art to him, beyond the ability to recognise a target from a sketch? Yet this was different for Jarlaxle sang a low soft dirge out in the dark, his voice deep and lonely as a well. And it sounded to him as if Jarlaxle were talented. As if he could have made a living as a bard if he so chose.

Maybe he had, in a way. What else was persuasion and blackmail and intimidation, if not an art?

"Some of us want to sleep."

Jarlaxle stopped singing when he made his way outside but otherwise didn’t move, stretched out on his back on his cloak with his hands folded behind his head. He had taken off his hat, and his eyepatch, and looked so strange without them that Artemis couldn’t help but stare for a moment. 

“All these sky-lanterns are blinding.” Yet he didn’t look away from them. And Artemis found once more that he rather liked looking at him, so long as Jarlaxle was focused on something else. 

“You won’t enjoy the sun.”

“Oh, I think I shall.” 

A part of him was irate that Jarlaxle managed to look so wolfish when he had never seen a wolf in his life. A part of him was irate that he noticed such a thing. The only thing he needed to notice about anyone was their habits, their weaknesses and where they kept their knives. Then again, perhaps it was wise to pay a surplus of attention to Jarlaxle. He was dangerous, after all, in the fashion of all drow and all crimelords. 

The drow insisted on watching the sun begin to rise. And despite the foolishness of that Artemis joined him. It had been a long time indeed since he had seen light, seen so many bands of saffron and yellow and pink wash up over the horizon. 

“We are made to stare at it rising, so that it hurts us and we learn to hate it.” Jarlaxle’s voice was soft. “But much as it was dangerous I couldn’t help but admire it.”

There were strands of orange in his eyes, Artemis saw. Completely invisible in the underdark, they glowed like amber up here. Jarlaxle flinched as the sun itself broke the horizon, turning his head and reaching for his hat so as to cover his eyes. 

Now. If he wanted to kill him and make his own way in the world, now was the time. 

But he let it pass, and they set off together.


	2. Chapter 2

To anyone else walking straight into the desert would seem like madness. The sands were badly mapped and infested with bandits and beasts alike. During the day the temperature could cook a man alive. By night they fell so sharply that bare skin stuck to metal. 

Artemis had used such dangers to his advantage many times before. Heavily armoured paladins and sluggish town guards sweltered in the blazing sun and shivered in the night. Either they gave up on chasing him or they fell to the many dangers of the sand. Or to him when he wearied of their company. The only person to pursue him for longer than two days had been another assassin, and he had led them into a flash flood in the narrow canyons to the north east. 

Either way, he almost always ended up out here alone. Almost always. 

“What are those?”

“Scorpions.” Not any useful kind, to his quick glance. The claws were huge, suggesting a creature that hunted by strength and had no poison for him to harvest. Jarlaxle was nevertheless fascinated and hung off his saddle to stare. The scorpion raised its claws warningly as the broad shadow of his hat fell across it. 

“What do they eat?” 

“Drow tongue.” 

Jarlaxle only snickered and wiggled back into something approximating a sitting position, shifting around to make himself comfortable. He plainly wasn’t used to the postures involved in horseback riding. Spider riders tended to kneel or sit cross legged, and gecko riders often lay nearly flat against their mounts back and tied themselves into their saddles so that they didn’t fall to their deaths when their lizards climbed through the many caves and tunnels of the underdark. 

Unable to adopt either such mode, Jarlaxle twisted about every half hour. So far he seemed to find a makeshift side-saddle posture most comfortable, easing his feet out of the stirrups and swinging them as he peppered Artemis with questions about the surface. His mount, a piebald mare almost as mercurial in nature as Jarlaxle himself, flattened her ears and snapped at his ankle. He snatched it away and wiggled the tip of his boot at her. 

“Ah! Too slow. One day you will bite me, but not today!”

Artemis’s horse sighed mightily. He was inclined to agree with her. 

He had been loathe to take horses into the desert. They were flighty creatures and they died too easily, leaving their riders stranded miles from the nearest oasis. A camel he could understand. They hated humans as much as he did, survived the desert longer and could carry much more besides. But the last town had suffered badly from a squad of zealot knights requisitioning their mounts. They were lucky to even find two horses, and they were expensive ones at that. All Jarlaxle’s sweet talk and all Artemis's glares were the only thing to bring the price down to anything approaching reasonable.

He could feel eyes on them even now. Likely only the presence of his…companion was the only thing that had prevented the bandits from attacking last night. A pity. He often kept himself in coin by killing whatever idiot highwayman tried to waylay him and claiming a measly reward in the next dusty hamlet he happened upon. 

Jarlaxle tilted his head back, lifting a hand to shield himself against the sun. Artemis wondered briefly why he hadn’t started to blister in the sun yet. Drow were notoriously sensitive to light. Perhaps that was what the third little hoop earring in his left ear was for. Slowly but surely he was cataloguing each piece of jewellery and its purpose, though Jarlaxle seemed determined to frustrate him and swapped his collection around constantly.

“Ah, good, the brightness eases. Much as I like the colour, it makes my eyes ache.”

Artemis looked up. The sky was blue and cloudless and seemed bright as ever to him. But this was part of the reason he had allowed Jarlaxle to travel with him. 

“Run.”

A sandstorm, heralding its arrival with a thin veil of airblown dust, so fine he couldn’t determine the difference it made as it drifted across the sun. But absolutely the degree of shadow a drow would detect. 

It said much for Jarlaxle’s sense of self-preservation that he didn’t hesitate to charge after him.

The magical tent would be little use against this kind of sandstorm. The desert to the east had been turned to glass many years ago by a battle between two red dragons, and so the sandstorms here were a maelstrom of enchanted glass shards. They could cut through all but the strongest magical constructs with ease. 

There, pillars rising out of the sand, near impossible to find unless one knew where one was going. He ran for them, dropping off his horse and running the last few steps. It turned, snorting, and bolted away. A great darkness fell across him and a dull roaring made the ground underfoot shake. They had perhaps seconds. The ground dropped suddenly away into a set of stairs, worn low in the middle by ancient footsteps. He turned as Jarlaxle slid off his mare and rolled upright. A dark tunnel stretched away in front of them, and he slowed down just enough to let Jarlaxle pass him, eyes gleaming in the darkness. 

The stairway was a secret he had discovered long ago, leading right down through the cliff and bringing them out onto the salt plains a mile below them. Jarlaxle inhaled sharply as they came back out into the gloom. All sight of the desert ahead was consumed by a shifting veil of sand, pouring like a waterfall from overhead. Lightning crackled somewhere within the storm and the drow grabbed his arm.

“Abbil?!”

Anything else he might have said was drowned out by a roar of thunder. Artemis pulled them in against the cliffside and turned, pressing his hand to the wall and feeling his way along. If he remembered right – and he always did – there was a cave just- here. Less of a cave and more of a large scoop in the base of the cliff. Enough for the two of them to huddle in and be mostly protected from the sand. But they weren’t alone down here. No, as his eyes adjusted he saw the dull glow of storm lanterns and the hunched shapes of caravans huddled in against the cliff. He growled in irritation- was he to have no peace at all? But he saw no religious iconography at least. Traders, not pilgrims, and quite the variety of them too, at least fifty all told peering out at them through shuttered windows. Humans, dwarves and elves. The latter of whom were all staring at Jarlaxle. 

“You should have worn a disguise,” Artemis told him over the unmistakable sound of swords being drawn.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some non-explicit M/M elf stuff here. Jarlaxle works fast.

“Stay behind me, abbil! I’ll protect you!”

Really, Jarlaxle was rather proud of himself. Considering that he was half-blind from the light and speaking in a language that wasn’t his own, those seven words were well-chosen and confusing enough to stop both Artemis and the caravaneers in their tracks. Enough to give him time. Sixty odd people, he assessed swiftly, several of them remaining hidden inside the little wheeled houses. Reinforcements or archers, most likely. 

But not all members of a house were likely to fight. Not the way everyone in a drow household would take up a weapon at the first sign of attack. Though his heart had crawled up to hammer in his throat and his blood surged as if for combat, he bade himself to look again. The half of them hadn’t even had their weapons to hand, were scrambling away in search of them. And now they hesitated to turn arrows and swords on the strangers in their midst. Even on a drow. Instead they all stood and stared, as if waiting for a signal to attack. Artemis exhaled softly behind him, his breath warm on Jarlaxle’s shoulder. He could almost feel him calculating which of the guards to tackle first. 

“Don’t,” he signaled with a twitch of his hands. Those were…not guards. He found it difficult to tell age in a human, but that one looked young. That other held her sword wrong. And that one over there was shaking so badly Jarlaxle thought he might vibrate out of his armour. These were families. And overworlder families weren’t primed for violence, not the way drow ones were. He gave them his friendliest smile and bowed with a flourish. 

“Care to share a cave? The weather is dreadful.” 

One of the dwarves eyed him and spat, her gimlet eyes suspicious. 

“What’s a man and a dark elf doing in the glass wastes?”

Ah, opportunity. He launched into an explanation of business interests and wanderlust, and felt them gradually lower their weapons. With immediate violence so abated his charming personality and natural charisma did the rest, and soon they were milling about the business of setting up camp as the sandstorm raged outside. Artemis slunk away into a secluded corner and started to put together a firepit, partially concealed behind a large boulder. Knowing how particular he was about the layout of a campsite, Jarlaxle left him to it and set about the important business of making friends. 

The caravan contained a great mixture of races, united in their trades as merchants and craftsmen. They travelled away from what seemed to be escalating tension in the local area, in search of rich markets and calm lands. Over the course of the day, as Artemis called these spans of time, Jarlaxle managed to partially charm the humans, dwarves and gnomes. Many of them had been born into truly wretched cities and slums and worked their way up to becoming businessmen. They saw in him a kindred spirit of sorts and he had managed to bond with the spice-sellers and grain merchants by bemoaning and jeering the strange antics of their underlings. 

Others remained hostile to him. One woman with thick arms, mage robes and eyes like steel had lost family to an underdark raid. Jarlaxle took care not to end up with her alone. It would be a shame to kill her, with such lovely eyes, and that would certainly turn the rest of the group against him.

The elves hung back from him, and retreated into their caravans when he went to introduce himself. They would never like him, he suspected. Too much history between their species. They snatched their children closer whenever he was anywhere nearby, as if he might somehow spirit himself away through the roaring sands, and touched the little wooden emblems around their necks as if to ward off evil spirits.

Lucky for you I'm not a priestess, he thought, irked. You'd all be in trouble then. She'd kill every last one of you, and your god would do nothing to help. 

Artemis was of little use in forging business partners, and clearly irritated that one of his secret hiding places had been discovered. Jarlaxle couldn’t blame him. It was upsetting indeed to draw a hand of cards and discover you were one down. Like as not, Artemis would never come back here now that he had been seen. A man like him didn’t survive by forming habits. 

And indeed, he was taking great care to keep himself hidden from the caravan at large. His face was on a few posters up here, Jarlaxle was willing to bet. Posters that had rewards on them. 

No matter. He was perfectly willing to be the face of their little unit. Particularly as it allowed him to taunt the elves by being just a little too friendly. Not a crime they could kill him for and have the support of the caravan. 

They seemed to labour under the illusion that Artemis was in need of rescue from his vicious drow captor. On the very first night, such as it were, they sent over an extraction team. Artemis did not react well to strangers grabbing him while he slept. Really, Jarlaxle was astounded that no one had died. 

As a mark of friendship he had gone skipping over to the elf camp with a bag of minor healing potions, and stolen a sweet pastry for Artemis so as to settle his nerves. Artemis glared at him as he returned. 

“You were supposed to be standing guard.”

“I did not want them to think I had stolen you, or that you are drugged, and that seemed the simplest-”

Artemis had thrown a knife at him for that, a scolding he was willing to accept, and he had retreated to the main cave to lick his metaphorical wounds. Much as he felt sorry for giving Artemis a fright, a part of him reveled in the confusion of it all. It had been some time indeed since he had caused such havoc and scandal with so little effort. All the house matrons had gotten too used to him.

“I shouldn’t be speaking to you at all, really, on account of all the blasphemy.” But speaking of great scandal with little exertion, one of the younger elves seemed to have largely overcome his fear. Menim was rather brave, as he had come back after their first disasterous rescue attempt in order to confirm that Artemis wasn’t somehow drugged or enthralled.

“Ah, but what harm is there in coming to understand one another better? Besides. Gods aren’t so powerful as they like you to believe.” 

Having realized that Jarlaxle could indeed speak elvish and would happily speak to anyone, the blue-clad mage now peppered him with questions. They had settled into a little alcove of the cave, still visible to the main cavern but just shaded enough to give a sense of privacy. The shadows sat very prettily on the high elf, and the firelight caught on chestnut hair and big brown eyes. Jarlaxle reclined on a blanket pilfered from Artemis, stretching out on his side and propping his head on his hand. It was a pose that showed him off to best effect, highlighting his unusual clothes and unique features while making him appear less dangerous. It took time to spring up off the ground and attack someone, after all. Menim's face was open and full of curiosity. 

“And all your women are bigger?”

“Yes, much as it is in the reverse here.” The kindest woman Jarlaxle had ever known had been nearly six feet tall. He still regretted having to poison her. But such was the way of the Underdark. Either his life, or hers. 

“That seems strange to me.”

“Does it? They create life. They need to be larger and stronger for such a feat, do they not? And it only follows that we should be a little smaller, as we only need enough size to be ourselves.”

It affected him, more than he wanted to admit, how familiar all the elves looked. He had seen those same eyes and cheekbones and ears in a thousand variations on a thousand priestesses, a thousand consorts, a thousand houseguards. 

“And you all can see in the dark?”

“As well as you see in the light.” 

Menim had started to scribble notes as they spoke. He stuck his tongue out in concentration as he did so, a little curl of pink. Jarlaxle could have killed him twice, now, such was his focus. A part of him was almost enchanted by such naivety. It was rather relaxing. With a companion so guileless he himself didn't have to be on high alert, ready to meet any test of boundaries or show of dominance. 

“And what about your crops?”

“We eat a lot of mushrooms and cave meat. Many of the fruits feed on blood.”

“Oh.”

“It is not a kind place.” He let his voice soften and his eyes grow distant, as if remembering terrible things, then brightened up and offered a shy smile. “But you, you are very kind to me.”

That was unbelievably trite, but the other elf flushed and shifted and mumbled. 

“Oh, well.” 

A blush was a delightful thing, Jarlaxle decided there and then. He couldn’t wait to see one on Artemis. Speaking of, he was glaring at them from atop the rocks near their camp. He had discovered Jarlaxle’s theft of the blanket. A nice blanket at that, tightly woven of fine wool and expensive black dye. Careful as he was to hide it, his assassin had something of a taste for luxury. 

He lifted his cup in a toast. Menim twisted and paled a little at the sight of him. 

“Is he your…bodyguard?”

“Overworld consultant.” Jarlaxle sighed a forlorn sigh. “I am quite alone in the world, you see.”

“How sad." And to his delight, Menim leaned forwards and took his hand, pressing his lips to his knuckles. "You don’t have to be, though.” 

Making love to an over world elf wasn't quite as he had expected it to be. The hair was rougher as he ran his fingers through it, perhaps because of the sun, and he felt a little stockier than Jarlaxle was used to. Was a little shy. And it was less a game of will and deception, more exploration. More open-hearted. He liked it. He could get used to this, indeed. 

And it gave him a way to see the inside of this third caravan, which Menim shared with the human woman. Where he had noticed a particular magical glow these last few – had they been in here two days now? He couldn’t tell, now with all the light blotted out by the sandstorm.

He knew what a scroll of sending looked like, smelled like when it had been recently used. Like boiled ink. That human woman who glared at him wore the robes of a wizard. 

Jarlaxle didn’t know exactly who she had been sending for, but he was clever enough to guess. The merchants had spoken of paladins who guarded the roads, and Artemis had been very determined to head right off into the wilderness. Gathering up his cloak, he slipped away out the door and back towards the lonely little fire that gleamed at the edge of the cave.


	4. Chapter 4

He hadn’t quite expected Artemis to yet be awake as he stole into their camp. But then, he didn’t sleep the way most humans did. 

“That was risky.” He spoke with his hands, the movements stiff and stilted. Jarlaxle thought of it as his own particular accent. “What are you about?”

“I should think that very clear.” He hadn’t taken the time to rearrange his appearance, knew he looked a little rumpled. Had left like that on purpose, almost challenging the caravaneers or Artemis himself to say something.

“You don’t need to. They don’t have any information or influence that could be of use for you. Or me.”

“Really?” Jarlaxle moved around him, knowing from experience that he wouldn’t step out of the way, and went for the remains of their dinner. Artemis had fried their salted fish in butter and garlic and chilli, possibly an act of aromatic hostility against the caravan. “How would you know when you’ve been hiding over here? They mentioned all kinds of interesting things about paladins.”

“I know about them.” Artemis spoke aloud and the words were as heavy as stone.

“Care to enlighten me?”

“Glorified mercenaries. This part of the world is a hundred little kingdoms always at war over one succession crisis or another. The usual nonsense.”

“Sounds like a good part of the world for you to find work.” 

“People here are not to be trusted. Not here or anywhere else."

"Neither am I." He smiled and Artemis scoffed. 

Jarlaxle didn’t quite understand human methods of succession. It seemed to pass most often down the male line. And paternity determined much about a child, whether or not they were considered a legitimate part of a family, whether or not they could inherit land and gold. It wasn’t enough to be born to the mother, no. It passed through the father, and if he fathered children with other women then it led to all kinds of complications. The concept of a bastard child was a strange one but it seemed to be very important to humans, important enough to go to war over. 

Not like drow, where fathering children in multiple houses was considered sensible so long as one wasn’t caught. If a man had three children in three houses, all of them fine strong stock, then the matron of the second house might take him in when the matron of another grew tired of him, or when the first house invariably fell to ruin. 

Forget about that, he told himself. I live beyond all that now. I will not go back. 

“This is delicious.” 

Artemis let the silence stretch. He was surprisingly good at this, Jarlaxle thought, at letting someone’s words hang in the air long enough that they became ridiculous. With almost anyone else he wouldn’t have allowed it, wouldn’t have let himself be drawn into the currents such silence created. But now no small part of him wanted to be drawn along, wanted to see where abbil would bring him. He piled two crumbly pieces of fish into flatbread and spoke. 

“So, I made a friend tonight.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“Quite." The fish was crunchy. He licked a stray drop of oil off his thumb. "What would you call it?”

“Stupid.” 

Jarlaxle felt his hackles go up and looked at Artemis from under his hat, knowing that the human couldn’t quite see his face. 

“Oh, would you?”

“A stranger in a strange place with no escape route and no allies.” 

“I have you.” And a million other tricks besides. But Artemis wanted to feel as if he were needed, much as he ever wanted anything at all. His human made a little noise low in his chest and looked away and twisted his hand as if dismissing the sentiment. 

“There was no purpose to it.”

“Oh, on the contrary.” He laughed as Artemis scowled. But didn’t quite flush. “Abbil, what is the matter with you? You know how I am in the dark, you can hardly expect me to be any different in the light.”

And again Artemis said nothing and stared out towards the fires of the caravan and this time Jarlaxle felt the silence draw tight, felt something coil and stiffen inside him. Anger? Fear?

“Would you rather I didn't?" That…had not been what he had meant to say. But the human was ever like a lodestone, drawing strange things out of him. Like the truth. 

"I won't ask you to be anything other than what you are." Artemis answered, his eyes on the caravan. He usually looked away as he spoke, assessing his surroundings. And that was just as well for Jarlaxle for he felt himself a little winded. Artemis took on a guarded expression. That usually meant he was about to speak honestly. 

"I would rather you were careful. We are travelling together, living together. We sleep in the same space, eat the same food. You spoke of partnership and then you let strangers close enough to touch me, you go and cavort-”

“That won’t happen twice,” he blurted and then dragged his words to a stop. This was – he could feel himself starting to shake and locked all his muscles against it. Artemis misunderstood, and of every miracle in the world the creases around his eyes softened. 

“Go cavort if that pleases you. It is not a thing you've gotten to do freely, with nothing to it except sport."

Ah. For a creature not blessed with darkvision Artemis had noticed far too much in the underdark. How everything he did had a purpose, had a cost. Jarlaxle felt abruptly as if he had been discovered with his hand in a jewellery box and scrambled for an escape. 

“I meant my failures as a watchman.” Inspiration struck and he fished into one of the inner pockets of his waistcoat. “In fact, I brought you a gift as apology.”

It wasn’t quite to his tastes, a piece of sharp flint on a worn leather strip. But it suited Artemis very nicely, almost the colour of his eyes. 

“The string will break should anyone try to grab it and there is a little magic on it. A charm that makes the eye slide over you.” 

“I can go unnoticed if it suits me.” But Artemis didn’t move away as Jarlaxle moved to slip it over his head, and then set about adjusting it to hang under his shirt. He did so half in a daze, too aware of the proximity, the heat of his skin, the breath that prickled over the backs of his hands. That Artemis looked into his face as he worked and that he was too much of a coward to look back. Too much of a coward who told himself he was cunning- Artemis might shy away from such intimacy if he looked him in the eye.

A hand closed over his wrist and he had to marvel at that, at a grip so firm he couldn’t move and yet not painful in the slightest. 

“Where did you get this?”

“I stole it.” It hadn’t suited Menim’s eyes at all, or any part of his whole outfit. Jarlaxle had done him a favour, really. And what of it, that it was considered most romantic amongst drow to steal a token off a rival and bring it to the object of your affections? What of it? Artemis wasn’t a drow and neither was Menim and no one here knew of such a thing except for him, and so it didn’t matter at all. 

Artemis sighed in the manner of a man often put upon. And then he smiled. It changed his face the same way the desert was transformed between day and night. Artemis allowed himself very little expression at all, never mind in front of others. And so Jarlaxle treasured it all the more as a sign that the human was sliding towards trust, drawn into him little by little. 

“You realize we’ll be stuck here at least another day,” Artemis said. He still hadn’t let go. Jarlaxle sighed and tilted his head and ran his thumb over Artemis's shirt, smoothing a crease from his collar.

“About that. I saw in that caravan accoutrements of wizardry and a scroll of sending that had clearly been used of late. Best we pack our things, swiftly.”

He was pleased, if not surprised, that Artemis had folded away all his belongings already. The man seemed to own very little aside from what he carried. Jarlaxle was halfway through packing up when a great thud resounded through the cavern. The caravaneers shrieked and dust rained down to coat his hat. Artemis looked towards the desert. Following his gaze, Jarlaxle could just make out the faint shape of humanoid figures making their way towards them. How were they pushing their way through that maelstrom? He reached out to stop Artemis as the man began to retreat. 

“Wait. You have a system of law here, do you not?” He did not quite understand the notion. The only laws of the underdark were power and blackmail. “They can hardly arrest us without due cause.” 

The expression on Artemis’s face spoke volumes. Jarlaxle sighed. 

“I thought it too good to be true.”

“You!” 

He had heard too many people say his name in a voice like that to mistake its intent. But they were behind him, and his hat and cloak wide enough and bright enough that Artemis, all in dark cotton, might not yet have been spotted. 

“Hide,” he breathed. Artemis said nothing and melted back into the faint cover offered by the slope at the base of the cliff. Jarlaxle affixed a smile on his face and turned, spreading his arms wide to give Artemis the best chance at cover. 

“I see my reputation precedes me. What can I do for you?”


	5. Chapter 5

A great shadow darkened against the sandstorm, arched over the armoured knight who shouted at him. Jarlaxle squinted, easing away from the camp towards the main body of caravaneers. They did not seem alarmed. Indeed, a number of them had cried out in relief at the sight of these new people, at the sight of their emblazoned breastplates. The symbol there looked at first like the head of a double-sided axe, ragged along the lower side. 

The paladin did not come alone. Two more figures pushed through the storm after him. Jarlaxle gauged them as human by their height, for their features were hidden beneath heavy plate armour. Surely they would swelter to death in the desert heat, wearing such a thing? He sidled out in front of the caravans as he walked. The cowering civilians might stay the hand of an archer or a mage. The first man swiveled to keep him in sight. 

“Stay where you are. Commander Paz’ac wants a word.” 

A greater shadow loomed through the sand and his thoughts went astray. It seemed at first that an upturned silver boat pushed its way through the storm, for the sands parted around an immense wedge. Jarlaxle silently called on the emerald charm around his neck, the one that carried a shield against magic. The dome split down the centre and unfurled like a flower in the sun. Shimmering layers of grey shuffled against one another, rasping like metal over metal. All at once his eyes caught the shape of leathery wings, supported by arched struts of bone. Horses snorted and stamped as two great argent sails lifted away and their riders urged them out into the cave proper. A long neck lifted from within that protective shield and eyes as orange and bright as lanterns opened to focus on him. 

A dragon. A real live dragon!

She measured some fifty feet long from horned nose to whiplash tail. Her scales looked as if they had been silver, once. But they were so scored and tarnished with scars and scratches as to be pewter in colour, giving her overall the appearance of a battle scarred knight. Combined with the great heavy scales that sat across her chest and back, and the short crest of spikes that framed her skull and eyebrows, the impression was very much that of an armoured warhorse. Her eyes were painted across with a stripe of red, perhaps protection against the sun in the same way that Artemis wore that very fetching black kohl. The broad scales that sat like pauldrons across her shoulders had been similarly marked, daubed with bright red markings that reminded him of the epaulets some high ranking houseguards had worn in the underdark. 

She was how they had pushed through the sandstorm, her great bulk and strength shielding the mortals. Dark pupils dilated briefly, taking in the cave before focusing on him. His heart fluttered strangely in his chest. 

If a drow soul returned to the world after death, as did the souls of their elvish cousins, then he might have had lives before this one. And Jarlaxle rather fancied that he might once have been a dragon. 

“Oh, my,” he murmured. “Magnificent.” 

The dragon exhaled in a weary fashion, her head bowed towards her chest. Her very breath was a visible thing, a froth of icy crystals that prickled along his stomach and arms even from thirty feet away. Her teeth gleamed like pearls. But the half of them were shattered, as if she had bitten through metal and bone. What kind of a battle-maiden was this? The caravaneers had spoken of men and paladins, so boring, men on horses, when this majestic creature soared through the skies? She drew herself upright as if labouring beneath a great weight and started towards him, leading with her head, the body following after, a motion not unlike that of a desert serpent. 

“State your business.” Her voice was a feeling as much as it was a sound, vibrating in his chest so violently that he couldn’t quite catch his breath. Frost dripped between her great fangs as she spoke, pooled and froze solid on the cave floor. Jarlaxle smiled and tipped his hat. 

“Why, my business is business! I am a businessman.”

“Indeed. One come slinking here in secret, from a land of blood and violence.”

“Aren’t they all?” Her talons were tipped with steel caps, rendering them particularly sharp. And it was worn steel, the kind of metal that had seen combat. “If my manner of travel has caused offence, oh argent lady, allow me to apologize on bended knee. It is a difficult journey up from the depths of the earth.” 

“Hrm.” Her great wedge of a head swung lower and she stepped carefully over the paladins to peer at him all the closer. Jarlaxle took a breath and held it hot and close in his lungs as she sighed a cloud of cold fog across him. Flowers of frost bloomed on his waistcoat and tiny icicles condensed on the rim of his hat. “I have heard tell of dark elves. Of their cities and their bloody rites, a dozen warring houses.” 

This close he could see how her face was a patchwork of wounds, her muzzle riddled with old white scars and fresh pink ones. A white knot twisted through the scales of her chest, as if she had been struck by a great sword. The edges of her wings were as ragged as the ears of a battlemaster, singed black in places as if burned away. 

“A dozen and more, my lady of the skies. It makes a man inclined to seek a peaceful life.” 

“Peace is a beautiful dream.” She settled slowly onto her haunches as she spoke, lowering her chest and forearms stiffly to the floor. They were face to face now. His every breath ached, and came out as a white cloud. Paz'ac wrapped her tail into a neat coil and rolled her wings in their sockets. “You have not been here long, but I am sure you have heard tell of war.” 

“A dreadful waste of lives, from my understanding.” In truth he had difficulty imagining it. Drow houses fought running battles through the streets as those uninvolved tried to get out of the way. Large houses could number hundreds of individuals, each of them a deadly warrior in their own right. Even the youngest priestess could unleash absolute carnage if properly protected by her consorts, and a wizard could flip a whole battle in favour of his house. Duels between ancient matrons had caused sections of the city to collapse entirely. 

But drow did not go to war, not on a large scale. Since the fall of the last few underground cities, Menzoberranzan had had nothing to fight except itself. Yet Artemis had described armies the size of the city itself as if they were nothing, hundreds of thousands dead in a single skirmish. 

“It is. Dreadful.” Jarlaxle sensed a great weariness from her, as he had from some of the most venerable matrons of the Underdark. They seemed to grow tired of it all as they aged. “I sought peace for years, as a negotiator between a dozen kingdoms.”

“But all they would respect was force.” Jarlaxle knew that story all too well. 

“Indeed.” A clear and shimmering membrane flicked horizontally across her eye and he felt very much as he did when in a room with a matron who knew something he did not. In a burst of madness he stepped forwards and reached out to place his hand on a broken talon. Her eyes flicked open and she tilted her head to affix him with one eye. 

"Such an outcome is a sorrowful one. But by times, a greater violence leads to less destruction in the end." 

"Indeed." 

Her voice was quiet. He decided to play his hand early.

“It seems to be as if you might be in need of fighters. I could provide such a service. Perhaps we could come to some arrangement?”

“Perhaps we can. You came here with a man.”

About thirty different threads of thought and calculation came to a screeching halt. About thirty more redirected themselves. 

“Perhaps you are mistaken. I travel alone.” 

Oh, fool. That was a bad lie, a blunt rebuttal of the truth. Better to say Artemis had died weeks ago, or run off into the storm. Paz’ac’s lip curled away from ivory teeth. 

“His actions led to this chaos. A dozen kings killed within a month.” 

Well. Artemis was nothing if not efficient. 

“You’ll have to describe this man to me, for they all look much the same-”

All sense of lazy grace vanished. Jaws wide enough to swallow him in two bites parted. The roar rendered him briefly deaf. He lifted a hand to steady his hat but resisted the urge to step back as the earth shuddered beneath him. The worst thing to do in the face of a threat was show intimidation. 

“And here I thought we were having a civil conversation.” His voice had gone harder than he liked, deeper. And he ought know better than that, than to let anger shine through. 

“Imprison him.” Her tail lashed. The crack reminded him far too much of a whip. Jarlaxle had long ago grown weary of floggings.

“I’m afraid that won’t work with my schedule." Jarlaxle reached for his garnet necklace and teleported twenty feet back, eyeing the men advancing towards him. “And I would so hate to cause any more trouble.” 

Paz'ac rose to her feet, inhaling deeply. The inner lining of her mouth was blue. The edges of the scales on her neck burned white hot, white cold. 

The dragon screamed as an arrow sprouted in the back of her throat, a dart of blackness. Another pinged off her face as she twisted away, a stifled gout of frost licking upwards to coat the ceiling of the cave. She reeled back, roaring fit enough to shake rocks from the roof of the cave, and Jaraxle leaped away from flailing claws and lashing tail. 

Artemis really was an excellent shot. 

Jarlaxle sensed the wingtip talon trash towards him as he bolted for the shadows. Without his shields it would have gutted him. With them a bloody gouge burst into life from shoulder to hip, twisting across his body. He gasped, snapped his fingers and bubbles of darkness swallowed up the storm lanterns. Artemis bloomed grey in his darkvision, clutching a tiny curved bow and lining up another shot at the screaming dragon. 

“Is there another way out?” He would make one if he had to. Artemis shifted sidelong and a deeper darkness loomed behind him, a crack in the wall. Jarlaxle felt air moving through it. Another cave system! He twisted and started to squirm his way through, all too aware of the chaos behind him, the thundering of armoured footsteps growing closer and closer. Artemis’s bow twanged twice more and then Jarlaxle was through, the walls opening around him into a broad cave. He turned to see Artemis pushing his way through, much more smoothly than Jarlaxle himself had done. 

Gathering himself, he reached for the tiny crossbow sequestered away in a magical fold of cloak. Artemis stiffened. Even as Jarlaxle shot past his ear and into the paladin reaching for him he could see the man think, ah. He thought Jarlaxle meant to kill him, use his body to block the gap and buy himself a few minutes head start. 

With someone else, anyone else, he might have. 

But now he took hold of Enteri’s elbow and pulled him through, then reached for his cluster of pendents.

The third silver one looked like a thing of blown glass, filled with brackish water. But thrown into the crack it smashed explosively. A sticky grey goo expanded as if with glee at freedom, swelling to fill up the crack and block the passage, hardening in an instant. 

The whole wall shook as a great force struck it from the far side. 

Again, and dust rattled from the ceiling, and cracks splintered through the paler layer of rock near the roof. 

Then a roar. 

And silence. 

Paz’ac wouldn’t risk collapsing the cave to get at them. Not when it might crush her knights and the caravan. 

Jarlaxle released a shaky sigh, and only then realized he was clinging onto Artemis like a stolen treasure, clutching him against his chest. He could feel the human’s heart hammering against his ribcage. He didn’t let go, and Artemis didn’t wriggle away from him. He barely seemed to realize Jarlaxle was there, his eyes fixed on the greenish glass that filled the crevice as if he could see beyond it. 

Jarlaxle decided to push his luck. He tilted his head and lowered his voice and virtually purred into Enteri’s ear. 

“My hero. However can I repay you?”

And that earned him an elbow in the shortribs.


	6. Chapter 6

A damn dragon. Artemis led them away from the wall as quickly as he could, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The cave stretched away until his borrowed darkvision failed him, twisting like a serpent, the roof so low in places that even he had to duck. Loathe as he was to admit it, the earring Jarlaxle had foisted on him proved ever useful. 

Jarlaxle himself was surprisingly quiet, and Artemis could hear him limping. He suspected the drow was nursing wounds to his pride as much as wounds to the body.

“What were you thinking?” He spoke with a flick of the hand, cautious of making a sound least it somehow bring that silver beast crashing down upon them. He did not know these caves, their entrances and exits. But the rock under the desert was porous and every cave he had ever found was riddled with tunnels. There had to be a way out. Which meant there was a way in. And the dragon might know it better than he. 

A dragon. He could tangle with kings and slavers and all their retinue. But he did not want to tangle with something that had teeth the size of his daggers. And yet a part of him considered the arrow in the dragons throat. Dragonslayers existed. Surely he could think of a more efficient way-

Jarlaxle huffed.

“To get work for us both, and coin. Dragons have hoards.”

“She could have killed you.” He had thought Jarlaxle was dead for sure when the dragon struck him. The spurs of her wings were long and sharp as a sword and Jarlaxle didn’t have the sense to wear a shirt, never mind armour. Of course he didn’t. That was part of the ruse. But once again, his trinkets had saved him. He virtually glittered with them now in the dark, the light shifting and sliding over bejeweled rings and fine bracelets and a dozen different necklaces as he turned to study Artemis sidelong, his eye gleaming like a garnet and half-hooded. He spoke aloud.

“A lot of things have tried to kill me.” 

He could see the words buzz in Jarlaxle's throat, wondered what they would feel like under his fingertips. The drow had a deep voice for his size, one that seemed to swell and fill the entire cave. 

“One of them will succeed.” Another slice of darkness opened up to the right and he set off to investigate, peering into the narrow tunnel. “Why didn’t you run away from her? Why did you talk to her, touch her?”

“As I said. Business." 

"And nothing more?" 

Jarlaxle chuckled weakly. 

"A little too serious for my tastes, beautiful as she was."

Artemis couldn't see the attraction. Then again, Jarlaxle seemed to like to court things more powerful than himself. Either he liked to, or he had never had much choice. To his surprise the drow spoke once more, offering something up unprompted.

"And I wanted to give you time to hide. To escape if they were bounty hunters. Which, as it turns out, they are. For you at least.” 

Artemis didn’t quite know how to respond to that, and instead set himself to investigating the new tunnel. He had to turn sideways to advance down, only to find that the bend was far too tight for him to squeeze any further. By the time he had extracted himself he had gathered his thoughts. 

“I don’t need your help.” 

“Of course you don’t. But isn’t it nice to have another sword in your arsenal?” 

It was. A little too nice. He didn’t care to grow reliant on it, not on a sword so double edged. 

“Swords are flashy and tricky to handle. They draw too much attention.” 

And Jarlaxle chuckled again at that, a sound low and soft that seemed to roll through the darkness like a wave.

“Ah, abbil. Then I shall aspire to be a dagger.” 

“You are what you are.” Although he didn’t think Jarlaxle was a sword so much as he was a glaive. One of those nice ones that looked almost ornamental, with a curved blade and a silly ribbon that somehow never got tangled in anything. 

Jarlaxle didn’t say anything in answer but Artemis felt his attention sharpen. And a part of him was smugly pleased to render the drow so speechless. He found two more crevices in the rock, but both narrowed down so much that he couldn’t reach the caves beyond. Jarlaxle rested on a low stone shelf outside, his eyes closed. As he pulled himself free with a growl the drow spoke once more.

“A dozen kings, abbil?” 

“Don’t remind me.” An old anger rose up in him and he spoke before he could stop it. “I knew that job was twisted. Didn’t even get fully paid.”

“No?” Jarlaxle’s tone was suddenly very curious and he knew he had said too much. “I take it you were working alone.” 

He said nothing, well aware that the silence was damning. It had been one of his attempts to work freely, without a guild or a master over him. And it was hard. Not the killings, but the various antics around them. He had had to go alone to places of many men and argue with bastard princes and corrupt nobles to be paid what he was owed. And knowing what he was, they had surrounded themselves with enough guards to make violent negotiations impossible. He had barely escaped that last tent, and still carried a scar over his kidneys from one particularly skilled bodyguard.

“Ah, abbil.” He felt the ghost of a hand reaching for him before Jarlaxle thought better of it. “This is why we get ourselves underlings, darling.” 

He knew better than to react, but some idiot part of him seized on the endearment like a cat on a string. And wanted for Jarlaxle to reach out again, that Artemis might close the gap this time. 

He was rather irritated by the persistence of it, having never suffered overmuch with longing or desire. It was a vague and nebulous thing for him at best, not the driving need described in songs and stories, and Artemis was glad for that. But this time round, between the stubbornness and the urgency, he felt rather as if he were being accosted by a fishmonger in the marketplace. All the worse, this wasn’t quite a problem he could warn off with a knife. No matter. He was well practiced in sealing away things he needed, things he wanted. 

But oh, how he wanted. Jarlaxle was so careful with everything he touched. So precise. 

He wouldn’t be so precise if he broke those fingers. Drow bone snapped much the same as any other. 

He shifted uneasily around that thought, oddly repulsed. And this was new, this was strange. He didn’t delight in hurting folk, as some of his peers did, but he didn’t hesitate to do so either. Pain was effective. A man with a broken hand could not grab him. 

Jarlaxle had never tried to grab him. 

_That’s because he is setting a trap. And you are walking into it. Fool._

That voice, as always, sounded a little too much like his father. But it wasn’t wrong.

“Is there a way out?” Jarlaxle seemed to speak his thoughts aloud, his voice wistful. 

“I will find one.” He could feel one nearby, quite literally. A cool breeze shifted around his head, and the edges of Jarlaxle’s cloak rippled ever so slightly. 

“Look!” 

There, a hollow halfway up the wall. 

“Can you levitate two people?” 

Jarlaxle’s skin gleamed very subtly purple beneath its darkness, a sheen like that of silk. It shimmered as he bowed with a flourish, smiling. 

“For you, khal-abbil, anything.”

And it seemed to Artemis that maybe he wasn’t the only one struck with inconvenient wanting for Jarlaxle clung to him a little tighter than necessary, and pressed his face into his shoulder when they landed. His forehead was dotted with sweat. The hat disguised his face, but Artemis felt it through his shirt. Felt him shudder just a little, and then tense in a vain attempt to control it. 

“Are you well?” The words were too loud in the still air of the cave, shattering it. 

“I am tired, Artemis.” He sighed into the quiet and it seemed like the rushing of a wave, swallowing them up. Jarlaxle only rarely said his name, knowing how much he hated it. 

“There is a cave up ahead. We can rest for a while.”

That was not what Jarlaxle meant and they both knew it. But Artemis couldn't think of anything else to offer him. And that he even desired to offer something more was truly alarming. His skin prickled and he stepped back, heart racing. What was he thinking, what was he doing? Jarlaxle was a force as much as he was a person, drawing strands of him out like a spinner drew yarn from raw wool. The drow would consume him entirely if he wasn't careful. 

And yet it still sat strangely in his mind, the wounded expression that flickered across Jarlaxle's face. Then he steadied himself, much as Artemis would have done in his place, and set off up the tunnel ahead of him.


	7. Chapter 7

Paz’ac’anan, First Commander of the Rightful and Tongue of King Cizan, lowered her head and sniffed carefully at the magical blockage in the wall before her. The scent clung the roof of her mouth, cloying and heavy as royal perfume. 

She was a fool to have allowed clever words and good acting to weave its way under her defenses. But then, mercy was considered a virtue. And he had seemed almost sympathetic, almost an innocent in need of her aid. She had at first thought him a hostage of the Snake. Until he had spoken of men. Of an army, perhaps? Yes, she thought grimly, that would follow the pattern of history. An assassin and a mercenary appearing at a time of great instability. Predators attracted by blood. Like as not they meant to hire their services to one of those kingdoms on the edges of the true Kingdom. 

She would know that drow when she scented him again, no matter how he tried to disguise himself. And she would know to watch out for that murderer-man. The Shade, he was called in the desert. The Poison Thorn. The Snake. A killer who could be gone twenty miles before anyone even realized there was foul play. 

No matter. She was new to these skies, but she could fly further than a human could walk. And she could see clearly through the night, should the drow try to sneak them through the dark. Rearing back she shook herself and swallowed hard, snapping the arrow in her throat and spitting it aside. Only with difficulty did she stop the lashing of her tail, knowing from unfortunate experience that it would knock her poor underlings flat. The merchants chattered anxiously to her men, their voices light and fearful, and they were brisk and business-like in turn. Even the other elves sounded nothing like the drow. 

Oh, how strange these mortals were! That they could vary so much within a species!

Then, maybe that was how dragons were. She could not know. Her egg had been found in an ancient hoard, abandoned in the cold dark, and she had been reared amongst noble children. 

“Commander?” Stevan trotted over to her, his armour clanking. “Orders?”

_Surround the cavern. Block the exits. Starve them out._

No. No, much as rage made her blood boil, much as the spirits of the dead demanded vengeance, the living were more important. 

“Are there any injured? Any ill?” She craned her neck to peer at the traders. “Load them into one cart and bade them tie themselves in. I can carry them to Crosslane, to the field hospital there.” 

“Commander, you are wounded.” 

“Oh, bah.” She flicked a wing dismissively. The arrow had already snapped, and she knew it would disintegrate and the wound heal up within a few days. “I’ve taken worse.”

She still bore the scars of ballista bolt she had taken to the chest during her first siege, only three months ago. Avon’ai was a stubborn principality, refusing to become a vassal of the true Kingdom despite her very reasonable offers. Only when she had appeared at the head of an army, only when she had destroyed their defenses and smashed her way into the throneroom with the document in her teeth, only then had the leaders agreed to the terms.

“Like as not the bolt was poisoned, Commander.” 

“I feel it burn.” She tilted her head carefully, swallowing. “But not enough. We caught the Snake unawares.” 

“And the drow.” Stevan looked grim. “I never thought I should see such two such monsters with my own eyes. And by day! It is an ill-omen indeed.” 

"Indeed." An omen. She did not know what to make of such things. But it seemed to her the starting point of a pattern that would escalate to chaos, were the two of them not contained. That was no omen, no shift of fate. That was simple probability. 

“Commander?” He knew a pensive expression on her face, though it sat very differently on her than on a human. 

“Let us tend the merchants. But set our rangers to cartography. I want to know the routes a man might take, were he traveling to the outer edge, and how swiftly he might move on foot.” 

…

Jarlaxle nursed his wounds, both of spirit and body, and studied his friend. 

Artemis needed to sleep. He was growing slow, unsteady in his hands. The tightness in his jaw said that the human was well aware of his fraying alertness. But nevertheless, he dragged them a good distance up this new sloping tunnel before finding an appropriate place to sleep, a little hollow surrounded by stalactites that would conceal them without hemming them in. Jarlaxle hung his hat on one jutting up from the floor, flopped onto the sand and started to rummage through his pack for a healing potion. 

Artemis scoffed at him when he summoned up a goblet to drink it from. Jarlaxle winked lazily over the rim of the glass at him. 

“Would you like some?”

“I’m not wounded.” Artemis kicked his bedroll open and settled down on top of it, closing his eyes briefly. And that gesture, in him, spoke of exhaustion. 

“No. Go to sleep and I will keep watch.” And distract himself from that miserable failure with Paz'ac. 

“Will you.” 

“I will.” He let his head tilt back, staring into the darkness. And to his surprise, and to his pleasure, Enteri lay back and closed his eyes. 

He had never once seen the man climb into that sleeping bag. Like as not he didn’t care to be trapped within. Or he didn’t care to grow too used to comforts. 

Jarlaxle did not ask of Artemis’s past. He did not need to. Why would he? He knew what happened to children when they were dropped into dangerous places with desperate people, with no protection and no friends and no money. He knew what happened. The Underdark and the Overworld were not so very different at all.

Jarlaxle sighed, the sound echoing wistfully into the tunnels and distracted himself by fishing his favorite set of navy blue gloves out of his hat. Lined with silk, they slid up easily past his elbow and clung to him like a second skin. He remembered the house he had taken them from, long fallen now, and a game of cards against a woman who hadn't minded losing so long as he smiled at her a lot and made charming conversation, made her laugh. She was long dead now. A pity. But the plans of her home had been worth so much. Of course he had bargained it away.

Absently, he smoothed a crease out of his cloak and then set about reorganizing his trinkets. He bored of the Golden Set, and besides it was sadly depleted by his adventures here. Time, instead, for the Azure Collection. A blue velvet ribbon that tied around the neck and made the eye slide over him, a golden chain that held a large blue stone against his sternum and carried a minor shielding spell, and a woven silver chain that hung down to his stomach, dotted with pearls and sapphire that carried charms for nimble fingers and light feet. Minor apart and powerful together, but not so magically potent as to draw the attention of, say, a dragon.

A dragon that had almost gutted him. The wound twisted over his stomach yet, tingling as the potion got to work.

_We should have been friends,_ he thought suddenly, furious. _We could help each other. Why chase the man, rather than those that paid him to kill?_

It would have been wiser to give Artemis up. 

Always, he had had to give people up. Underlings, friends, lovers. Influence, trinkets, his dignity and his freedom. 

He wanted to keep something, for once. Let Artemis leave him if he wished, for Jarlaxle was quite sure he was fascinating enough to draw the human back, again and again. But he wanted to keep something, not have it pried away by necessity and fate. For once, he wanted to keep something. For once, he wanted to indulge sentiment. 

_Fool desire._ That sounded like Zak. It always did. _You'll get yourself killed. Or someone else, more likely._

He turned his mind away and replaced his rings, admiring how the thin silver bands stacked together and gleamed against his gloves. Why, they looked like stars in the night sky! How beautiful. He added two more to his thumb, dotted with sapphires, and tilted them to admire the sparkle.

Artemis had commented on it, once. 

“You wear a lot of rings.” _For a swordfighter._ The caveat hung unspoken in the air. Jarlaxle had said something meaningless in turn. But that had been the first time he knew for sure, that Artemis watched him when his head was turned away. 

He looked so vulnerable when he slept. A strange word to apply to someone who slept with a dagger under their pillow. But so it was. And he managed to look concerned as he dozed, his eyebrows drawn together in a little frown. What did he dream about? He never spoke of it. What did he think about when the night was quiet? What colours did he see, what patterns in the night sky? How had he kept himself alive all these years? 

He needed to sleep. Jarlaxle could feel the healing potion burning away at his wounds, knew they worked better when he was unconscious. He settled himself on his side so as to study Enteri’s face, the crease of skin where neck joined shoulder, the hollow at the base of his throat. 

_You fascinate me. Gods. If only you knew._


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up for a somewhat graphic recalled neck injury at the beginning of Jarlaxles section

Artemis drifted towards sleep the minute he lay down upon his bedroll, the darkness rising up through his mind like ink blooming through water. 

If he wished to move on swiftly, it was best to move alone. Even uninjured the drow had slowed him down. He could wait until Jarlaxle was deep in reverie, gather up his things and leave. 

The thought twinged uneasily inside him, as if he had pricked himself on a needle. 

Why? This wouldn’t even be the cruelest place to abandon him. A cave was a perfectly safe for a drow. And it was stranger still that the thought of cruelty even occurred to him. The world was not kind. Neither was he. Since when did he care? 

_Or I could kill him._ It would be easy. This was likely the most vulnerable Jarlaxle had been in some time. No army of murderous mercenaries and seething fighters to evade, no damned psion, no safehouses for him to dart between. No winding staircases and twisting tunnels, no hidden doorways in secret fortresses. 

It would be simple enough. He could do it painlessly, ensure the drow simply never woke up. 

Jarlaxle dead was worth a lot of money to the right people. 

He scoffed at himself suddenly. The right people were drow, and it was a rare drow that would allow a free human in their house. Never mind the notion of paying one for his work. 

“Only the fairest of prices, my dear.”

He started upright, dagger drawn, and hissed in frustration. Not content to chatter enough for three people when he was awake, Jarlaxle had decided to speak in his sleep as well. So much for keeping watch! Artemis grumbled at him. 

“Can you not be quiet, even once?” 

Jarlaxle had twisted himself quite thoroughly into his bedroll–a double sized one, lined with silk of every maddening thing–but he somehow nestled deeper at the sound of his voice and smiled.

Artemis knew the effect he had on people. How unnerved they were when he looked at them for too long. He relied on it. People reacted to that in different ways, puffing themselves up or shying away like rabbits. Others still saw him as a challenge, someone to be won over or controlled in some fashion. 

It had been that with Jarlaxle at first, circling him like a damn vulture, poking and prodding in search of a reaction. Artemis hadn’t cared about that so much. Of course the drow needed to try and figure him out. His survival relied on understanding the people around him. 

And then some time through all that madness in the dark it had changed into…this. Whatever this was. 

It wasn’t as if Jarlaxle needed to travel with him. He had as many disguises as he had bracelets. And he was clever enough and savvy enough to make his own way. He didn’t need Enteri as a guide, had likely never needed anything at all. In truth Artemis had expected Jarlaxle to leave once they reached the surface, to vanish in the night. 

To give him up for the hefty reward on his head. 

It would have been the wisest course of action. Jarlaxle could be hashing out the finer details of a lucrative contract with that dragon even now.

Yet here he was, happy enough to skip after him like a bejeweled shadow. 

Artemis was beginning to suspect that the drow enjoyed his company. 

_This is a trap. A silk shackle is still a shackle._

But perhaps it was easier shucked than an iron one. 

A whine cut through his thoughts as he tucked the blade away beneath his pillow. Drow seemed to travel back through their memories as they slept. Jarlaxle was reliving an unpleasant one from the sounds of it, muttering low and fierce in undercommon. 

Artemis had not asked much of his past. Much of it seemed a mystery to the Bregan D’aerthe, as if he had simply sprung fully formed from the underdark in his hat and cloak. Artemis had heard all the rumours during his time amongst them, understanding more of drow speech than he cared to let on. Many of them had spoken in front of him as if he were a statue – he was just a human, after all. 

To hear them tell it Jarlaxle had a hundred different fathers and no mother at all, was the last son of a long fallen house seeking chaos and revenge, had been sent to earth by the drow trickster god to remind the priestesses that there was more to the pantheon than Lolth. They said he had gone into Lolth’s web a hundred times and moved so easily through her challenges that she had grown tired of summoning him, that he had gone into the Feywild and diced against Luck itself. 

Artemis wondered at them, if they couldn’t see or wouldn’t believe that it was all hard won, all skill and hard work. Jarlaxle, he suspected, had never had anything to protect him except what he could steal.

He closed his eyes and sought out sleep once more. It felt like barely a minute passed before Jarlaxle woke him again. This time he was growling, had tucked his chin down tight against his neck.

That won’t work for more than a few seconds, Artemis wanted to tell him. If they’re determined they’ll find a way to cut your throat.

The problem here, he had come to suspect, was that Jarlaxle wasn’t used to sleeping on his own. Space and solitude were a rare thing in the dense underground city, and the Bregan D’aerthe fortress was full to the brim with noisy fighters and couriers ever running to and fro. Even without that, Jarlaxle tended to find someone to sleep with. Sex seemed very transactional for him, if a source of enjoyment. 

Grumbling, he stood and gathered up his bedroll. 

…

Jarlaxle awoke in a disorientated burst. For a moment his reverie clung to him and he felt the touch of hands, of a knife, and remembered very vividly the sensation of someone pulling his head back and slitting his neck open. He had barely survived that, had had to hold his throat together to swallow the healing draught that saved him. 

“Go back to sleep.” Enteri’s voice seemed to float into his awareness, vague around the edges.

“Abbil?” Sa’ai must already be dead if Artemis was here. Drow assassins never took him seriously and so he had become a great assassin of drow. 

“Move over.” Artemis nearly hit him with the bedroll when he didn’t move quickly enough, dropping his so that it overlapped Jarlaxle’s and folding himself down on top of it, just outside arms reach. “Go back to sleep.”

“I was not asleep.” Jarlaxle propped himself up on an elbow. “It would be warmer in here. And there’s room for two of us.”

“I can see that.” 

“It would reduce the wear on your roll, and make it last longer.”

“Mm.” 

Alas. But he was all the more glad he had changed his jewels, that he glittered and shimmered afresh. It took Enteri a long time to get to sleep, after all, and he might appreciate something to admire as he tried to drift off. He thought back to the merchants and how they had spoken to one another, their casual remarks and evening rituals. 

“Goodnight, Artemis.” 

Enteri said nothing in return but Jarlaxle could feel his attention, feel his interest wax anew, and couldn’t help but smirk as he slipped back into reverie.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief mention of slave trade and trafficking about two thirds of the way through, just after "And you should still wear a disguise."

By Enteri’s estimate it took them a solid twelve hours to make their way out of the tunnels, drawn upwards by the faint breeze twisting through the tunnels. 

The eastern horizon shone a brittle shade of pink, heralding the blistering heat to come. Up here the breeze became stiff, tugging at Jarlaxle's cloak. Pale mist rolled upwards over the dune to wreath around their ankles and drift out across the desert behind them. Artemis set down a canister to catch a few stray droplets while he tried to orientate himself. He had artifacts to make water, but old habits died hard. 

The stars were rapidly blotted out by the rising sun, and the pattern of the hills and dunes against the sky was not one he knew. Jarlaxle flinched a little as the sun rose and shifted so as to stand in his shadow. He moved away instinctively, so that he could keep the drow in sightline. 

“Abbil?”

He didn't respond, mightily irked. Try as he might, traversing the wilderness had always been a struggle. In a city he could find his way with his hands cuffed and his eyes covered, literally. But out here distance and direction tended to deceive him.

He shaded his eyes and frowned at the horizon. The sun rose in the east and they had been traveling just so, before the sandstorm. And though they had twisted about in their journey to the surface, they were likely not too far off his original path. 

“If we travel roughly north east we will skirt the true desert, it will bring us closer to the tent-towns and...” what had been a small town known as Crosslane, in the tiny kingdom of Al-Hynd. So minuscule that their king had been very poorly guarded. Like as not it existed no more, swept up by that dragon. 

It was a risky proposition, travelling through uneven and unknown terrain during the day. Jarlaxle turned his head to take in the distant horizon, expression sharp, and Artemis knew he was thinking much the same thing. 

“It’s either this or Paz'ac,” Jarlaxle said finally. “Best to get a headstart on her. She did not seem like she intended on putting me in the pleasant kind of handcuffs.”

Artemis scooped up the canister and started down the dune. 

_Don’t ask. Don’t._

“There’s a pleasant kind, is there.” 

“Silk,” he answered lightly. “In a way, getting lost was a good idea. She won’t have any idea where we are, if we don’t either.” 

That didn’t sound like very fair logic to him. But the fog would provide them with a little cover for the morning, and a little coolness. He skidded the last few feet down the dune and sighed in relief as grey mists immersed him entirely. Jarlaxle tried the same maneuver, but he was not so used to sand and stumbled. Artemis briefly considered letting him fall head over heels before putting out an arm to steady him. 

“Why, thank you.” And lightly as a feather, Jarlaxle lifted his hand and pressed his lips to his scarred knuckles, red eye glinting up at him from under his lashes. Artemis had seen such things done before, between knights and nobleladies, or a young buck trying ineptly to flirt with a giggling maid. Being on the receiving end was...not unpleasant. 

“Are you quite finished?”

Jarlaxle looked for a minute like he might try Enteri’s patience, but he stiffened suddenly and looked up towards the sky. 

Wingbeats, slow and steady. 

“Is that-”

“Unless there are two.” 

“Ah, yes. Perhaps they will fly away together.”

“Quiet.” 

In silent accord the two of them slunk in close to the edge of the dune, and Artemis crawled upwards on his stomach to peer over the rim. There, a silver blot far too close for comfort. He could see the scarlet marks on her shoulders as the dragon flew up and over a set of sandstone hills. She was laden down with soldiers, strapped to her back and hanging from long harnesses just behind her wings. He eased back down into the fog and started to jog. The further away they got, and the faster, the better. Jarlaxle fell in beside him, mercifully quiet.

She flew back and forth for the better part of the day. Within three hours she had made the journey three times, carrying something between eight and twelve people. There had to be a town there, or a camp. 

Now, if that were Crosslane, then they ought to be just so, between two oasis. He would need to check the stars to be sure-

“That’s quite the trick,” Jarlaxle signed to him. They moved parallel to her, flattening themselves to the sand whenever it seemed like she might be coming towards them. As the day progressed the sun reared up to glare at them and the dunes turned to winding slot canyons. Artemis advanced into them with great uneasiness. Canyons like this were worn into the red rock by water and wind alike. They were prone to flash-floods and riddled with snakes. An easy place to get lost. 

Artemis frowned at the bands of rock under his fingers. This dark one, with the grey flecks. This one looked almost like the band he used to orientate himself in other canyons, further to the south. Could it be the very same rock? 

"This dragon worries me," Jarlaxle signed suddenly. 

"That's the most sensible thing you've said all day." Artemis dug a nail into the black band of stone. It crumbled away easily, as if it were made of ash. Remnants from that ancient dragon battle, perhaps, the same thing that had turned half the desert to glass. "But carrying those soldiers will tire her."

“But not them. If she moves them ten miles and they march, and then she rests and flies to meet them and carries them ten miles more-”

He understood and looked at Jarlaxle with a tight expression. The drow inclined his head and continued. 

“It would let them rest, and travel further. Appear faster than an enemy would expect, or from an unanticipated direction.”

“No wonder this King is sweeping them all up.” 

“You know who he is.”

“I suspect.” The very same man who had hired him to kill off the others. The very same who had tried to kill him at the end rather than pay him his due. “Baltazan, he called himself then. One of a number of bastard princes.” 

They wove through the canyons and through a narrow tunnel full of scorpions that once more brought them into the sands proper. Just as he had that morning Enteri eased himself up along the sandy slope, flattening himself to crawl the last few feet least he present a target to any watchful eyes. The sky behind them seemed empty. Perhaps Paz'ac had finished moving all her fighters and decided to rest behind those hills, shelter from the blistering heat. It wasn’t a bad idea. Even through his magical armour he could feel himself starting to cook. 

An hour, he decided. They would walk for an hour and then set up a tarp, try to stay hidden in between the shifting dunes. 

_An hour’s advance won’t do you much good against a beast with wings._

“This sand is a different colour.” 

He almost started at Jarlaxle's voice. The drow had stretched out, not quite next to him but a little too close nonetheless, examining grains of sand in a gloved hand. 

“Shh,” he signed back. “Sounds carry out here. And you should wear a disguise.” 

This desert had always been a hive of slavers and the rewards for elves were high. Buyers found them dainty and pleasing. Jarlaxle would be considered an exotic commodity, a midnight elf worth thrice his weight in gold. 

It agitated him all the more, the heavy leaden concern that rose into his chest at the thought. 

“I do wear a disguise.” Jarlaxle tilted his head up so that the sun caught on the brim of his hat, flashing a razor sharp smile. Artemis couldn’t begin to think why he smiled like that, exposing his throat, unless it was a form of defiance. The hat _did_ hide his face quite well, now that he looked at it. But not quite well enough. 

“You ought wear a better disguise.” 

“Why, wouldn't it be a crime to hide this from the world?”

“You are a thief and a thug, you trade in crime.”

Jarlaxle looked as if he wanted to retaliate to that, but instead stuck his tongue out, a small pink curl not unlike that of a cat. 

“That does nothing to dissuade me.”

“I will- let me investigate my wardrobe.” Jarlaxle’s arm vanished up to the shoulder into his hat, ears flattening in concentration. Artemis looked behind them, grimly aware that the soft sand made his footprints a traitor. When he looked back Jarlaxle was entirely shirtless, his head and arms half-way into a surprisingly normal tunic. He felt his eyes catch on his shoulderblades, smooth motion under supple skin, on the curve of shoulders themselves. Then they were gone under a swath of cream cotton, a shirt with the same kind of loose sleeves Artemis associated with duelists and noblesons and other such headaches. 

And stranger yet a long diaphanous scarf, almost the same shimmering purple as the indigo that gilded his shoulders and collarbones. Jarlaxle pinned it into the crown of his hat so that it hung around his shoulders and face, weighed down by a fringe of black glass beads, and immediately started to preen. 

“How do I look?”

“Worse. I said a disguise.” 

“This will hide me from prying eyes, will it not? And besides, some of traders in the caravan wore a scarf over their hats like this.”

He actually had a point with that. Human traders from the lagoon, just south of this desert, often wore such things to protect themselves from biting flies and prying eyes alike. And a careless glance might perceive Jarlaxle as female, now that the finer points of musculature were obscured beneath that flouncy shirt. 

“People will see us running through the desert and assume we are eloping,” he hissed. This led into a fifteen minute description of what exactly an elopement was, and Jarlaxle was immediately besotted with the notion. 

"They can simply run away and be married elsewhere, and the family can do nothing to spite them? How marvelous!"

But then, perhaps that wasn’t the worst. A couple tended to fade into the background. They would be considered another two displaced people, just like the traders, moving through on their way to more peaceful climes. Easy to forget about. 

The dune flattened out and grew hard under their feet, and grew paler and paler until it started to crunch under his boots. A salt-pan. 

"Ah, this scarf protects my eyes," Jarlaxle whispered, sounding very pleased. "But perhaps we should wait, nonetheless. It looks very hot out there."

It did, so much so that the air was shivering. 

"No one else will travel in the middle of the day," he answered softly. "Best we do and outpace them." 

It felt like an omen when all his magical protection fizzled out, halfway across the pan. He spun on Jarlaxle, expecting betrayal, only to find the drow looking at him in horror. 

He had never seen Jarlaxle afraid before, not openly. And the expression vanished so quickly he might have imagined it. Except that Artemis knew himself and knew he hadn't imagined anything. 

But he had no time to speak for the ground itself seemed to open up around them. Bandits, burying themselves into the earth to avoid the sun. Not a trap so much an unfortunate coincidence. Artemis had a moment of clarity where in he recognized ragged uniforms, torn insignias even as he hurled a knife into the nearest one. He had killed their god-king and outrun them some five years ago. And now here they were, running from the dragon, just like him. 

"Artemis!"

Jarlaxle shrieked his name just as three of them set upon him.


	10. Chapter 10

The fighter nearest Jarlaxle shrieked as a throwing knife sank into his shoulder. 

He had been aiming for the neck. The humans were like shadows in his vision, blotches against the light. 

Just enough for him to see them, enough for him to target them. Jarlaxle cut the shrieking human off with a dagger and let himself fall backwards, sensing as much as seeing another weapon slicing towards him. Its owner stumbled, the point of the sword digging into the sand, and he snatched another knife out of his boot. An old gift from a very practical lover, and a detached part of him knew a burst of fond nostalgia for her as he drove it into the humans throat. 

Artemis was silent. Jarlaxle couldn’t risk turning, not with two more advancing. They were cautious, advancing on him slowly. He hopped back over the corpses of their companions, forcing them to split apart. The veil was a useful addition indeed to his arsenal- it hid his face, hid his eyes. They couldn't tell who he was watching. 

Jarlaxle drew his rapier with a hiss, easing back with a lazy grapevine step that would nonetheless allow him to leap in any direction he pleased. The movements were familiar, old. He had been very young when he had decided to weigh the world in his favour. Trinkets for luck, boots of silence, a sword that made up for the reach he otherwise lacked. Slow suited him, slow movements to keep him cool, slow breathing. 

Never mind that he would cook sooner than they would, that spots of blue and green already began to dance through his vision. These humans didn't know that. 

Sooner or later they would get impatient and do something foolish. 

They came at him separately, one from the left and one from the right. He snatched his cloak loose and hurled it at the first one, dodging around his wild attacks and jabbing out with the foil. The long, narrow sword slid up and around the humans guard, sliding between his ribs. It skittered off bone as Jarlaxle withdrew, throwing him off balance. He wobbled and then moved into it, catching himself and tumbling upright as the second human committed himself to an attack. 

This one was tall with long arms, too long for Jarlaxle to get around. He let himself be pressed back under the mad assault, dodging what he could and parrying that which he couldn’t. This soldier was big and desperate and each blow left his arms so numb he could barely hold onto his sword. But hold he did. After three attacks the human was gasping with exertion, wilting in the desert heat even as he continued to harry him back. And though Artemis had pushed them along quite apace, Jarlaxle was still hale and steady on his feet. Enough to catch that sword in a wrap of his scarf and break it with a good solid kick. The soldier stumbled back, looking down at the stump of his sword in blank horror. 

Jarlaxle growled at him, knowing the human couldn't see much more than white teeth and red eyes. He fled, and Jarlaxle knew better than to give chase to someone with longer legs in the desert heat. He drew his crossbow instead, touched the brim of his hat for luck and sent a quarrel sinking into the humans back. Not enough to kill him alone. But the heartbane poison coating the tip would do the rest. 

Turning, he saw one blurry shape -Artemis, he would know those fluid movements anywhere- stab another through the stomach. 

Three fighters lay dead around him already. But another had come up behind him, drawing a whip of all things. There was a reason the priestesses favoured those things- it was hard for a swordsman to guard against them, and all drow men fought with swords. Jarlaxle broke into a sprint. So did Artemis, closing the gap between himself and his attacker, ducking his head low. Air cracked. 

Jarlaxle hurled his hat into the last soldiers' face, blinding him with fabric. And himself with sunlight. But he knew where the soldier was, enough for his feet to carry him forwards. His sword seemed to find its target on its own, slicing out and withdrawing with a splatter. He skipped back so as not to get blood on his clothes, and only lowered his weapon when he heard the thump of someone hitting the ground. He stabbed downwards to be sure.

Darkness bloomed against the white glare of the saltpan. Reaching down, he felt around until his hands brushed glass beads and a felted brim. It was damp with blood. Wrinkling his nose against the scent, he picked himself up and went to Artemis. Without thinking he reached out, half to find him. Pale blotches danced in his sight, echoes of the sun that haloed around Enteri’s darker figure. Artemis twitched at the touch on his arm, but didn’t resist as Jarlaxle reached for his face, peering at the wound. A bloody hand twisted into his shirt as Artemis peered at him in turn.

“Are you wounded?” The human’s voice was a rasp. Jarlaxle would have taken much joy from such consideration, from their proximity had Artemis’ face not been half a mask of blood. Human blood always seemed garishly bright to his eye, almost luminescent. Seeing it on Enteri froze all his words in his throat. In front of other drow, or a few months ago, he would have been able to say something flippant. _I do hope the other fellow looks worse_ or _Ah, I see you have been making friends!_ But now-

“Oh, abbil.” The skin around his eye was split and bruised, darkening black and blue already. But he had been clever, catching the worst of the blow on his forehead. Though one eye had swollen closed and the other watered badly, it didn’t seem to Jarlaxle’s experienced gaze that he would lose his sight. 

“I’ll need that eyepatch of yours soon,” Artemis managed, and Jarlaxle chuckled.

“Of course, and I can be your seeing-eye companion to squire you hither and yon.” Fishing bandages out of a mundane inner pocket as he spoke, he started to wad them carefully over the wound. Artemis scoffed faintly. 

“A fine pair we’ll make, the two of us half blind.” 

He was shaking, just a little. Jarlaxle was as well, deep down in his bones. He had been lashed before, many a time, by drow who smirked at his pain and delighted in his humiliation. And not in the fun, mutually agreed way that left him warm and loose afterwards. Shunting those memories back, he set his hat onto Artemis’s head and tilted it to a jaunty angle. Artemis started and he allowed himself to grin at the sight. 

“How dashing you look! Come, no grumbling, it will protect you from the heat.” Tugging the veil loose, he wrapped it up around his head and eyes, giving himself some coverage from the light. He started to reach for Artemis’s hand, then thought better and took his sleeve instead. “Follow me.” 

“We must get out of the sun,” Artemis said, looking back towards the edge of the dunes. "We can go back and set up a tarp."

“Ah, not to fret, for I have a plan!” Those soldiers had come from somewhere. And they had left footprints in the salt, so large he could follow them easily enough. "They didn't have food or water with them. There must be a camp nearby.”

“Yes, lead us into a massive mob of them.” Artemis hooked an arm through his, as if he expected Jarlaxle to abandon him and was determined to stop him from running away. “If we’re caught I’ll say you kidnapped me.” 

“And I’ll give you up for the reward-” he grinned as Enteri started to growl- “-and then come break you out of jail.” 

"Like hell you will," Artemis said, stiffening a little as Jarlaxle started to walk and then falling into step with a scowl. 

"Of course I will! You're far too valuable to leave in some miserable jail." Truth mixed in with teasing. If only they could walk arm in arm through a market or some exciting new city, rather than a bloody desert! 

Had he his druthers Jarlaxle would have buried the fallen humans, hiding them from prying eyes. Paz'ac might fly overhead, her soldiers might track them. Blood and bodies drew attention. But already he could feel himself start to burn, and even Artemis had taken on a red tinge beneath his natural colour. 

_I will not die out here. Not after everything._

Salt crunched underfoot, far too loud for his liking. The ground rose again and became darker, rocky rather than sandy. They came over the hilltop to see a shallow valley below, and a little cave tucked away at the back, almost invisible from above.

“Abbil, look!”

Artemis grumbled and cracked his eye open. It watered dreadfully as he squinted down into the valley, dilute blood streaking his cheek and jaw. 

“Be quiet.” He spoke with one hand, the movements stilted and stiff. “There could be more of them.” 

Jarlaxle set a hand on his arm and spoke in finger taps. 

“I smell no smoke, I hear no voices.” 

Normally, Artemis went in front. He knew the terrain better than Jarlaxle, knew how to move quietly over sand and gravel alike in a way that Jarlaxle couldn’t. But now he was just as likely to slide and slip on the hillside. Jarlaxle inched forwards, clinging to the shadow of the hills. His breathing went soft and quiet quite of its own accord, as if he were sneaking through an upper-house with intent to steal. He felt young again, in the worst sense of the word. 

Artemis hooked his finger through one of his belt loops and stuck close to him. The brim of the hat bumped up against Jarlaxle’s shoulders. This cave was smaller than the last one, the roof so low he nearly had to duck. It bore signs of recent life, an old firepit and an array of sheepskins, upturned crates acting as tables and chairs. But no traps, no sleeping soldiers. No sign of what had driven them to leave. 

Hunger perhaps, for he found nothing but scraped-clean plates and gnawed bones in the corners of the cave. 

Artemis was very quiet, making his way around the cave with the back of his hand against the wall so as to orientate himself. Poor abbil. Not only was he injured, but likely scolding himself severely for such a slip-up. Really, anyone could be caught out by such a weapon, particularly when outnumbered. 

Artemis jumped when he gasped, grabbing for his belt-knife.

“What?”

“A map!”

And even better than than, better than gold, Jarlaxle could see a wellspring of clear water at the very back of the cave.


	11. Chapter 11

The water was so clear, like glass or fine crystal. Jarlaxle was enchanted, turning his head this way and that so as see it around the edges of the white haze in the middle of his vision. That would fade with time, he was sure. Of course it would fade. Surface elves and drow shared a common heritage, heretical a thought as that was, and they managed perfectly well in the sun. He couldn't be so far removed from that as to go blind, no matter what stories the old men told. 

“And you say it falls from the sky?” What a marvel that must be, surrounded by thousands of little diamonds. Water in the underdark came from the great river that cut through the city, or by magical means and underground springs. Jarlaxle himself knew the location of three subterranean waterfalls that he guarded as jealously as he did his hat. 

Artemis didn’t answer for a moment, leaning in towards the map and turning his good eye towards it. 

“Yes. Perhaps twice a year in a great flood. We will need to be away before nightfall unless you want to turn that hat of yours into a boat.” 

A flood. Jarlaxle had never seen one, but he had read of them in pilfered overworlder novels. Tugging off his gloves, he lowered a hand into the water and sighed in relief as it washed over his sunburn. 

“Don’t drink it!” Artemis hissed at him. “Do you want to get sick? We need to filter it, boil it.”

So much work for something so simple. Jarlaxle closed his eyes and pressed a wad of soaked cotton against them lightly. But still an ominous white bloom shimmered in the centre of his vision, clouding the world wherever he looked. Fear simmered in his gut. All drow feared injury and debilitation. Obvious incapacitation made one a target. 

He started as a hat plopped back onto his head. 

“Cover your eyes a while.” Enteri’s voice was gruff. “It will help with the glare.” 

Was his half-blindness so obvious? 

“ _Abbil_ , if you wish so eagerly to blindfold me you need only ask-”

Artemis shoved him into the pool. But Jarlaxle hadn't made a habit of aggravating most of Menzoberrenzan without gaining some quick reflexes. Grabbing onto Enteris sleeve, he kicked his ankle askew and dragged the two of them in with a splash. 

Unwise, given that he had seen Artemis drown would-be attackers in the Menzoberrenzan river. But worth it for the brief expression of surprise right before the two of them hit the water. Artemis immediately shoved him under and scrambled for purchase, splashing him when he popped back above water. Jarlaxle snorted water out of his nose, scooped up a hatfull and jammed it onto Enteri’s head before he could get away. He got a thump to the ribs for his trouble. But it only winded him, rather than breaking bone, and so he knew that Artemis knew he was playing. The heat soon put a rest to their skittishness, and the excess energy of battle faded so that he suddenly felt as limp as a fabric flower. He let himself sink into the water, cool and relieving. 

“Truce?”

“You only say that because I’m winning.”

“No no, I feel bad fighting a blind man-” he ducked away as Artemis made a grab for his ears, likely with a good twisting in mind, and caught his wrist mid-grab. The movement brought them closer together than usual. He couldn't quite see his face, not with this accursed sun-bloom. Tilting his head up, he broke the silence. “How is your eye, _abbil_?” 

“Fine.” Artemis slid out of his grip as easily as Jarlaxle might slide out of an inconvenient shirt and gave him back his hat. But he did not move away. “Yours?”

“I did not realize quite how blinding the sun was,” Jarlaxle said, voice soft least he startle the human away. It seemed to him that it was less straining to stare into the darker part of the cave, and so he gazed at the back wall and not at Artemis. “You wandered alone out here very often?” 

“It is a good place to disappear.” 

He imagined Artemis alone and bleeding and without a friend in the world, and he ached. 

“Remarkable how those soldiers stayed alive.” What a pity, to die after all that to a drow and an assassin. If only they hadn’t met them with violence. “Why did they try to leave in the middle of the day?”

“To avoid the dragon. No one sane wanders around in the midday heat.” Artemis had turned just enough to eye him pointedly. The sunlight filtering in from the cave mouth glistened on his shoulders, on the water gathered in the divot of his throat. 

“On the contrary, I am perfectly sane.” Jarlaxle had wondered on the nature of madness and come to the conclusion that if he were crazed it was in a cold kind of fashion, a useful kind. “Besides, you were the one urging us on.”

“I’d rather die in desert sand than by dragon teeth,” Artemis rumbled, eyes almost closed. Jarlaxle looked at him, all warm tan skin and lean muscle and faded scars. All guarded attention and skill and surprisingly sly humour. He knew the style of fate that awaited him at the claws of Paz'ac, at the hands of the man who had hired him in the first place. It would be public. It would be slow. It would be humiliating.

 _No. Not this one. Not this time._

“What do you make of that map?”

“I could start a fire with it.” Artemis was quiet a moment. “Those soldiers were from the old kingdom. If I’m reading those colours and crests right, it has been swallowed up by someone else since. Probably that neighboring territory with the sun god.”

“Meaning it is not under Paz’ac’s eye.” Sometimes the only safety to be found was in the house of your enemy’s enemy. And it was hardly safe. But it was a place to catch one’s breath. That was all a drow ever got. 

Artemis didn’t answer him. His good eye had drifted shut, his breathing slow. 

He had fallen asleep in front of him twelve times now. Jarlaxle kept careful count. He was careful about everything. Drow had to be. And so from habit and from deliberate caution he had studied that map himself. Artemis led them well, but best to know his way lest they be separated. Half the desert ahead of them was marked in a hatchwork of red and yellow, and half the desert behind marked with shades of blue and silver. If the scuff marks and old ink was anything to go by, Paz’ac had been expanding her nations reach for some time now. 

So strange. Jarlaxle had made a study of overworlder materials, learning as much as he could of their world and culture. Dragons appeared usually as agents of apocalyptic destruction, wreathed in fire and lightning. And they were rare. A dragon openly intervening in human affairs…there were historical accounts, ancient even by drow standards. But dragons seemed to have mostly faded from the world, some great peace treaty amongst themselves perhaps. 

Where were her parents, her clutchmates? Why did a dragon care about the political affairs of creatures come and gone in an eyeblink? In a heartbeat? 

He looked at Artemis. His breath rasped ever so slightly in his throat as he slept. An old injury perhaps, a relic of illness. 

They died so easily. Any little thing at all. 

He wasn’t surprised so much as resigned when he saw the spider. It looked harmless as did all deadly things. A little black thing with a mark on her back that looked like a skull, hanging on a silk thread from the cave roof. Right over Enteri’s heart. 

_Not this one. This one is mine._

Drow could not be said to be superstitious. Not when their gods so often intervened in their lives, not when their cities were surrounded by mind-flayers and near every kind of monster imaginable. Drow weren't superstitious. They were sensible. 

Jarlaxle did not pray, as such. He knew better than to get the attention of things greater than himself. But he toed the line. 

_I am telling a fine story, am I not?_

_I am the perfect drow, am I not? More than the houses, more than the priestesses. I never move in the open. I never tell the truth. I do not face things stronger than me head on. I do not die._

_Always I am spinning a web. I pull a string and dozen things move. I am tireless. I draw all lost things to me and I never let them go. I am the perfect spider._

_She_ couldn’t get at him. He was careful not to think her name. She couldn’t get at him. Otherwise, why was he alive after rejecting Her favour all those years ago? He had seen Her face, once, and essentially spat in it. 

She could not smite him. She hadn’t even killed Drizzt, who burned his way so brazenly to freedom. She was not so powerful as she had everyone believe. Jarlaxle understood that, for neither was he. It was all a ruse, all a show. And so long as he played by the rules the priestesses had to think he was favoured, or at the very least amusing enough to be allowed survive. And so they were afraid to touch him. 

_I know a con when I see one._

So many men thought they wanted freedom, when what they needed was power. 

_I am the perfect drow. Not the priestesses, not the matrons._

_Me._

_**Me.** _

“Jarlaxle.” As if in another life he felt a hand on his face, warm. “You’re dreaming again.” 

He pretended at slumber and Artemis splashed him awake. He ought have seen that coming, Jarlaxle thought ruefully. 

“Wake up. You’ll want to see this.” 

The spider was gone. But he was distracted from his victory by the sight of the world outside. It was dark enough that he could almost see clearly, and he saw disaster. A mountain of grey cloud towered overhead and with the mind and eye of a drow he saw a great rock fall about to topple down upon them. They lit up strangely from within, throwing strange patterns of shadow and light across the desert. A searing beam of jagged white light cracked the sky from top to bottom and he couldn't help but recoil. Quite unknowing he grabbed onto Artemis’s sleeve to steady himself.

And because he was so dazzled, he didn’t quite notice that Artemis didn't hit him or immediately pry him off. Jarlaxle twitched as another boom of thunder rolled past them, half expecting pain. That sounded like two archpriestesses dueling, or the dreadful collapse of a huge cave. And under that he could hear another noise, soft and sibilant and unrelenting. 

Rain. Jarlaxle knew the word, but he had never seen it. This couldn't be normal. The hissing noise grew louder, louder, soft and hard together until he could barely hear his own thoughts. And then finally the rain rolled over them in an ashen veil, blotting out the world in a haze of water, hammered down into the dry earth. Jarlaxle tugged his glove off and reached out. 

"Oh! It's warm!" He turned his hand over and cupped it so that water gathered in his palm. Clear bright water from the sky. Like diamonds. What a marvel.

Later he could not think what had caused it. If it was the quiet and their relative seclusion, if it was the relief at seeing rain in a blistering desert. If it was because he had tried to run to Artemis during the fight. If it was because he was looking away, because he was smiling in wonder at such a simple thing as rain. 

Either way, Artemis reached out and took his hand in a deliberate fashion. Rough lips grazed his knuckles, grey eyes glancing up at him through dark lashes as if to check that all was well. Tiny droplets of water glittered in his hair. Jarlaxle thought for a moment he was about to swoon from such a sight and couldn't do so much as squeak in answer.

A fact Artemis was well aware of if the slight smile at the edge of his mouth was anything to go by.

"Come on. Best we move before it floods." 

Well. 

After that, what could he do except follow wherever the man might lead?


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm away this week, so an early update for y'all!

Artemis put his hood up as the rains reached them, stiffening in pain as the light fabric brushed over his wounds. He hated a lot of things, but he hated head and eye injuries almost as much as he hated burns, organized religion, and drow. And desert rain. 

He was dressed for heat and combat, light cotton and loose linen. This cloak would do little to keep him dry. 

The rain seemed gentle, soft shifting veils of grey that muted all sound and turned the horizon to an ashen haze. The scrubby underbrush and rocky hillsides came alive with a hundred twisting streams. This was a tricky part of the desert, a maze of hillocks and dry riverbed gullies that resembled a cobblestone road writ large. The setting sun hovered below the rainclouds but above the horizon, lighting that portion of the sky a potent shade of orange. With his aching head and black eye the whole world seemed surreal, like a dreamscape or hallucination. 

A dangerous thought. This was still the desert and the rains had come. Staying here would leave them right in the middle of the floodplain. Best to move, even injured, even with night coming in. Especially then, given that he had a drow to lead the way. 

Said drow seemed entirely at ease, tilting his head back so that the rain fell on his face, eyes closed. He was soaked through already, his shirt clinging to him and those big sleeves dripping water. Droplets gathered at the brim of his hat and glittered in his eyelashes. It had been impulsive, reaching for his hand like that. Artemis didn't often act on impulse. And given that Jarlaxle hadn't boxed him on the nose - had indeed seemed quite thrilled - he rather wanted to kiss him again.

“Something on your mind, Artemis?” Jarlaxle grinned as he spoke, teeth white in the gloom. Bastard. 

“You will need to go in front. Night is coming in. Your eyes will do better.”

He took some pleasure from the surprise that flickered over Jarlaxle’s face. 

“Of course, abbil.” 

“You need to keep those three hillocks right in front of you, the ones that overlap slightly.” He pointed, all too aware of the injury in his hand that made it feel weak, that stopped his fingers fully extending. Jarlaxle turned to peer into the darkness, ears perking forwards. “The waters should be flowing towards us at a right angle.”

He ought not have been surprised, that Jarlaxle insisted on taking his hand. 

“The terrain is very unstable, abbil, particularly with all this rain. Besides, best you stay close lest I go entirely astray, I have never been so good at following directions.” 

Foolery. But between the darkness and his impaired vision, his feet were clumsy. The third time he stumbled like a drunk he reached out. A gloved hand snaked around his and Jarlaxle knew better than to tease him. 

This was a mistake. He ought be doing this alone, learning new terrain and how to navigate it while wounded. Jarlaxle wasn't going to be around forever. 

_Idiot._ That voice sounded a little too much like his father. _Stupid, useless-_

He shifted closer to Jarlaxle, looping his arm up through his so that he could lean on him. And break his wrist, if he needed to. The drow smiled, his eyes like torches in the rain. 

…

This would have been truly delightful, Jarlaxle thought, if they weren't both injured. The rain really was very beautiful, and the world seemed quiet around them. Perhaps if they weren't both bloody and soaked through Artemis would be inclined towards more than- 

Jarlaxle couldn’t help but miss a step as half of his magical arsenal crackled back to life at once. 

“Ah,” he managed softly. The world seemed to shift around him, a dozen minor scuffs and scrapes closing up. The tear in his shirt mended itself. The rain suddenly began to bead and roll off his cloak rather than soaking through. His ears tingled as the various enchantments in his hat hummed back to life. “Abbil, I have something for your eye.” 

He counted it as a victory that Enteri didn’t scowl or evade him, and only let his hand hang near his beltknife when Jarlaxle fished a healing orb out of the depths of his hat. 

“It works best if two people hold it.” 

The humans expression told him he didn’t believe that in the slightest, but Artemis played along with him anyway. And it warmed the cold parts of Jarlaxle’s soul to see the tight lines of pain ease off his face, the bruises fade and retract, his skin take on a plumper, healthier aspect. The wounds on his knuckles fused back together as he eased the patch up off his eye, blinking. 

“Ah, much better! Such a pity it was, to have such a lovely pair of eyes hidden from the world.”

Enteri pulled his hat down over his face in retaliation. 

"Do you have another raincloak in there?"

Of course he did, being a generous and thoughtful soul. One nearly the same shade of grey as Entrei's eyes, which he wrapped around himself with barely-concealed relief. 

"Better?"

"Keep moving." 

They splashed through countless streams, each one creeping further and further up along his boots. Jarlaxle finally came upon one too deep to wade through, as wide across as four men and churning quite alarmingly in the middle. Sweat beaded on his arms as he levitated them across, his poor enchantments creaking under the effort. Looking back he could see that many of the hills they had climbed over were islands. Artemis nudged him. 

“Look there. That seems a safe bet for a dry camp." 

A few hours of rest sounded something close to divine. Jarlaxle squinted, then hissed in victory as a darker shape loomed against the rain. A great pillar of rock loomed out of the desert, reminiscent of some of the larger houses in the underdark. He couldn't help but sigh in relief at the sight of a hollow in the base, and started to peel himself out of his damp clothes as quickly as he could. Artemis settled stiffly to the ground, eyes closed. 

_You really hate the cold, and the wet._

Seeing the ever-stoic human so overtly discomforted lit a determination in him. 

“Let me cook, abbil.”

Typically, Artemis was possessive of the cook fire. Jarlaxle had at first put this down to paranoia and control. An assassin had to be hyper-aware of the idea of lethal concoctions in his food, and a former street child ever-alert to hunger and starvation. He had been content to allow this, and thought himself a good friend to accept food off an assassin while only wearing his third best anti-poison ring. Over time, he had come to think that Enteri enjoyed cooking. But he looked so miserable that Jarlaxle couldn't bear the thought of it. 

Artemis eyed him a moment, but finally nodded and started to slowly tug off his sodden boots.

Yes, good. Jarlaxle settled in front of the flames and set about concentrating harder than he ever had in his life. Artemis, he suspected, had never had anyone make food for him. He wanted to do a good job, a personal one. He wanted Artemis to look at his hands again. See them working, careful and clever. See them working for his benefit, for his comfort. 

Human cooking was a very different affair from that of drow. Even in this small part of the world he had seen a much greater variety of meats, vegetables and herbs than the average drow had access to. And drow did not cook with flame, too dazzling. Most often they cooked upon large flat rocks, heated by magic or the warmth of the earth. Enteri’s attempts to feed himself using small fires had drawn quite the audience amongst the Bregan D’aerthe, much to his obvious chagrin.

Jarlaxle knew a sudden burst of nostalgia. He missed the mercenaries, unwieldy noisome scrabbling lot that they were. He was sure they would take to overworld food, once he was able to get them past their inbred xenophobia. 

They were almost out of fresh food. He decided to blend it all together, and hope that they reached the town before resorting to rations. 

Having observed the caravanneers and Artemis over the past few days, Jarlaxle was sure he had a good idea of how to go about things. Lots of this little white wedge with the strong scent, lots of this vegetable that made his eyes water, and this little green leaf that shriveled up into nothing when exposed to heat. 

Chopping was tricky. Artemis made it look so simple, slicing through these little orange vegetables with ease. Jarlaxle said as much aloud, ears flat with concentration. 

"I have taken work as a cook," Artemis said, wringing water out of his trouser legs and draping them over a rock. 

“A useful role for a wandering assassin. No one would wonder why you were so good with knives.” Clever abbil. 

“Yes. And it made it easier to access a person's food.” Enteri's voice muffled as he tugged on a dry sleeping-shirt, threaded through with runes of protection and concealment. It left a truly distracting amount of leg visible. “I miss the fish knives in Arhlath, up on the coast. Sharpest thing you could imagine, glided through meat and bone.” 

“The coast?”

“Where the land meets the sea.” Realization crossed his face. “It is like a gigantic lake, but too salty to drink. And the water moves up and down the shore, as if it is breathing.” 

Jarlaxle would have accused him of making that up, had he not read reports of such a thing. 

A sizzle from the pan made him wince and he grabbed the handle, shaking the pan and wincing at the scent of charred meat. Artemis almost smiled, dousing the cookfire with sand. 

"A drow-style supper, then?"

"Oh, there isn't half enough poison for that." 

Artemis slept near him once more. Jarlaxle rested easily in reverie, lucid enough to notice when the human moved just a little closer. He came half alert, lest this be the moment Enteri draw a knife on him. Instead, the human propped himself up on an elbow, frowned at him a long moment, and then draped half of his blanket over Jarlaxle’s legs with an expression that could only be described as determined. 

Jarlaxle made sure to roll onto his side and drag the rest of the blanket with him. 

He thought the sensation of impact, the soft thud and rustling to be part of reverie at first, or Enteri hauling the blanket back. 

Then his breath bloomed through the air in a dreamy cloud of fog, and came sharp and cold in his chest. Frost spiderwebbed over the puddles outside as he pushed himself silently onto all fours, activating the invisibility charm woven through his cloak. Artemis wordlessly pushed his way in next to him, dragging a fold of it over his shoulders and around his face. Flurries of white snow started to alternate through the soft grey rain beyond the cave mouth. 

Jarlaxle wished once more for his mercenaries, and started to count the footsteps to the river.


	13. Chapter 13

_One day ago:_

It all seemed so very small from up here. The sky beckoned her, filled with inviting grey and white clouds. So cool upon her scales, gentle when she inhaled. The desert was a harsh place for her, burning hot. King Cizan and the King before him had alleviated much of her discomfort by giving her a whole wing of their marble palace, filling with splashing fountains and cooling plants and enough books to satiate her every appetite. 

They were good memories. So easy to forget the smoke and blood below. 

Falwield was a small queendom, but had put up a ferocious fight these past few weeks. The common soldiers spoke of her with a kind of grudging admiration, but Paz’ac wanted to find the human and shake her like a terrier would a rat. All this death and destruction, for the sake of pride. The yearly rains gathered on the horizon, promising bountiful crops, and they would rot in the fields for want of someone to gather them.

Truly. Humans were foolish creatures. They needed her. 

The Falwield soldiers had mobilized well against her fighters, though they had come down upon them from the north. They had retreated back along the hills until they found an area of rocky debris and now wedged themselves in there, a bristling line of spears and shields. Two horseback archers raced along the back line, shooting anyone who tried to scramble up over the boulders. They meant to hold that line, tire her soldiers out and prevent them from taking the town just up the road. 

But they hadn’t spotted her yet. The low grey clouds concealed her. Humans never looked up into the sky. 

Her soldiers moved aside, forming a square with an open centre. She landed right in the middle, turned gaping jaws on the cavalry line and roared. Ice crawled up her throat but she swallowed down, held it in abeyance. Slaughter had never held much appeal for her. These humans had been sent to their deaths by a cruel commander. She had no desire to be that death, not unless it was absolutely essential.

The horses squealed and broke, bolting up the road. 

She snarled briefly in annoyance – they would surely bring word of the attack, allowing the town to reinforce itself- before turning her attention to the shieldwall before her. The row of soldiers bowed and buckled as some of them recoiled, but the line held. Tucking her head in against her chest, she bulled forwards and slammed through. Metal splintered, and beneath it, bone. 

She did not like to kill. But sooner strangers than friends. 

Two hours later, they were marching on the walled town of Marcloc. They, at least, were wise. Flags of surrender and signs of welcome hung from every wall and window. Two hours later, she had settled onto her stomach in a camp outside the town as the soldiers set about reorganizing the barracks. Soon, there would be a wide space cleared for her, with torches and maps. But for now it was merely a camp, scattered and unsettled, and the healers in charge as they tried to stop the injured from dying. She lent them her aid, cooling the air with her breath. The healers said that the cold stabilized the wounded, slowed their heartbeat so that they didn't bleed to death.

After that, she went to the morgue and lent them as much ice as she could muster. After that she stood in the cool twilight, tasting the rain that descended from the north, her wings arched. So much death. All because of-

“Stevan,” she said. “This Shade. Was it ever discovered, who had sent him?”

Humans did not often seem to know their own senses. Their descriptions were either sparse or over-rich with detail, much of it made up. But over time a pattern had begun to emerge. Everyone talked of the kingkilling. But in that chaos pattern had been subsumed. Nobles from this very kingdom, a dozen of them felled like wheat before the sickle. How could the Shade be in two places at once? Did he have some artefact that allowed him to stalk a king in the southern reaches, then leap back across the desert and poison a man at dinner? Quite the social event too, a ball attended by King Cizan! She shuddered to think of the Shade so close to him.

And yet. A human like that thought only of money. Why would he ignore a king and take a noble? What orders had he received, and from who?

“Send for the reports. Original documents. And a large glass lens, that I may read them for myself.” 

They would take time to arrive. She set Stevan in charge and opened her wings, letting them carry her away into the clouds. The winds were strong, driven before the rainclouds, strong enough to lift her and carry her like a fly-away scarf. She barely had to beat her wings, sailing mile after mile before reaching one of her favourite perches. A great tower of volcanic rock, right on the border of Si’sial.

On a good day, she could sit here and study the border. Watch the movements of their troops, perhaps fly overhead and let the sunlight glitter off her wings, soar in a circle with cartographers on her back, that they might map a good invasion route for her. Such tactics had led to three different towns surrendering at the mere sight of the Kingdoms' flag on the horizon. 

Such tricks of intimidation were unlikely to work on Si’sial. The country was small but rich, and her scouts had brought her troubling reports of late. Of tapering black tubes, set into city walls and fortresses. Like great wands that could shoot forth fire and bitter steel, tearing armies to pieces. Perhaps enough to wound even her. Cannon, they were called. She longed to get a look at them with her own eyes. But today all was hidden in grey fog and shifting rain. The floods had reached this place already and one hundred twisting rivers had turned the hills to islands. The far bank, such as it were, where the land rose above water level, was totally invisible. 

Pa’zac let her eyes slide closed and her wings slide open as she sank down onto the rock. Besides. She was a scout no longer, but a general. She was needed on the battlefield, turning the tide in favour of her soldiers, dropping from the sky to break a shieldwall or deal with a troublesome wizard. Risking herself for curiosity would be selfish. 

Particularly now, when the floods would cause the armies all kinds of logistical problems. Her men would have to wade, and the short ones be helped along by their taller compatriots. All across the glass desert, supply lines would be interrupted. But in that, there was opportunity. If the armies of the Kingdom struggled, so too would any defensive force sent to meet them. This might well be the perfect opportunity to claim some border towns with minimal casualties. 

Her thoughts rolled slowly to a halt as her senses asserted themselves, and she twisted to peer down into the dark. Her talons were caked with blood and dirt, her scales blackened with smoke. But under that gory stink, she could just detect a particular smoky perfume.

…

_Now:_

Jarlaxle was glad he had burned the onions. Such a sharp, overpowering scent, enough to buy them some time. 

Twisting the fire ring on his right index finger, he reached out and restarted their cookfire. Yellow flames flickered and caught in the kindling, licking around the bottom of the pan. Artemis stirred next to him, his hands shifting as looped his swordbelt on over his nightclothes and dragged on his shoes. Despite the tension of the moment, Jarlaxle couldn’t help but feel a burst of happiness when Artemis didn’t glare at him for restarting the flames. Either he had gleaned Jarlaxle’s plan, or trusted him enough that he didn’t need to. 

His skin stood up in little bumps as the air chilled further around him, and a great rasping inhalation from outside. The dragon was bleeding from a fresh wound on her skull. Blood beaded and clotted between the small scales of her forehead and snout. Her pupils shrank as she focused on the fire, nostrils flaring. 

Artemis started at the sight of a second Jarlaxle, fully garbed in his underdark gear of waistcoat and doeskin trousers, grinning like he had just won a game of cards. The faux-drow zipped off past the dragon in a flicker of purple cloak, laughing, and the dragon snarled and whirled around and away from the entrance, lips wrinkling back from her teeth. 

They moved as one, Artemis mostly hidden beneath his cloak, and made a beeline for the river. He could levitate them over and be gone-

Jarlaxle had the unsettling experience of watching Paz’ac biting his shadow-self in half. Two great lamplike eyes opened wide, piercing through the rain, and whirled to and fro before fixing on them with a hawkish intensity. 

Ah. He had never tested his invisibility against a dragon before. The great armoured scales of her chest seemed to shift apart as she inhaled, shining silver from within, and even from thirty feet away he felt the air chill. 

Artemis darted left and Jarlaxle right. The air between them seemed to grow thick and then solid, a great frozen cloud blooming forth. 

But a strange boon presented itself, for the surface of the river behind them froze briefly solid. Artemis went skidding over it, ice splintering beneath him, and Jarlaxle followed, gasping as his feet went into the water on the last step. A hand grabbed his elbow, hauled him up and sidelong.

Paz’ac gathered herself and leaped after them like a great cat, slamming into the low hill. She sank deep into the mud as she landed, whereas Artemis had found the rocky part and now led them up and over the hill, shielding them against another blast of ice. Jarlaxle twisted, picking out those three hills in the distance. The earth behind them crumbled as Paz’ac slammed her way through, snarling, catching them on the leading edge of her wing. Her momentum carried them, sent her skidding through mud and river-water, inadvertently throwing them onto the next patch of rock as she scrambled for purchase. 

It took him a moment to move, reeling from the impact and the cold. He thought he heard Enteri cough faintly off to his right, the pair of them stunned. Instinct drove him to his feet as Paz’ac reared out of the water like a great serpent. 

And stopped short, her tail stuck to the grey gloop Jarlaxle had dropped on the last isle. He cackled despite himself as she lurched jerkily, head swiveling, and snarled in outrage. 

It was less amusing when she breathed cold upon it and shattered the resulting ice to pieces with her claws. Jarlaxle turned to flee. Artemis was already vanishing into the rain, having fired an arrow and a rope into the scrubby trees on the nearest patch of land. Jarlaxle took two running steps and floated after him, sliding as he landed. He decided briskly that he disliked mud, though everything in the overworld so far had pleased him. 

Mud, and perhaps the ice that crawled up around his boots. 

And perhaps dragons.

There was no more time to think, for Paz’ac was upon them. For a moment the battle swung in their favour, for as Paz’ac’s head snapped around towards Jarlaxle he heard a clang- Artemis bashing his sword off her stomach, a distraction rather than an attack. And when she twisted to bite him Jarlaxle jabbed into the fold of her elbow, rapier sliding between scales and into flesh. She roared and he saw Enteri tumble away, away from her teeth and jaws. 

Then the natural order of the world reasserted itself. A lash of her talons knocked him flat. The blow was enough to wind him, but his body remembered even as his thoughts reeled. His hands kept a hold of his sword, he rolled away from the follow-up attack. A great tail slammed into the sand next to him, mud splattering, and he got to all fours and dragged himself away. Dancing lights burst into life around her head and she reared, dazzled. A wind whipped over his head as he scramble-crawled along, belly to the ground, out of range and towards the nearest river. He could swim, that being the only way to escape some underdark fortresses. 

_But abbil- ?_

He felt Enteri’s absence rather than seeing it. Artemis was already on the far bank, and he looked back only once before disappearing behind a hill. 

Good! Now Jarlaxle didn’t need to worry about him, and could do what he did best. Survive. 

Paz’ac opened her wings to glide after him. But of all things it told against her, for the wind caught her and wretched them open, sending her whipping head over tail into the nearest river. It was barely deep enough to submerge her but just enough to slow her, for the conformation of her wings and body shape left her trapped briefly on her back. She thrashed, roaring, trying to twist back onto all fours. 

Jarlaxle picked himself up, set his hat straight and ran in the opposite direction.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From my trawling of the internet, Jarlaxle's poor diatryma seems to have neither a name or a history. So I made one up for her.

Artemis thought the red heat crawling up his spine meant poison. That he had pricked himself on one of his daggers, that Jarlaxle had jabbed him with something. That the attack from Paz’ac had knocked something loose inside him, spilling blood into his chest or gut. 

Then he realized it was guilt. He crushed it like he would a windpipe, absolutely furious with himself. Guilt! 

_He'll think I left him._

That ought not matter to him a whit. And yet. And yet. 

He waded through another river, this one coming up to his knees, and had to clamber up the far bank using the scrubby underbrush for purchase. A roar had him twitch. Silver and white flashed in the darkness, reflecting large through the drizzle. She had decided to chase the drow. Not him. 

_Good._

No. No, not good. Jarlaxle knew where Artemis intended to travel, and would surely give up such information for his own freedom. Artemis pulled up short on the crest of what had been a rocky ridge, looking back, breathing hard. 

What was he doing? Why wasn't he running? 

Best to go back and get him. 

_He knows too much of me._

Best to find him and kill him. 

Artemis grimaced, suddenly tired of himself. He wasn't going to kill him, not at this stage. Probably not. 

_Fool. You deserve all you get._

A strange gurgle cut through the low grumble of rain. He turned, knife drawn, and was presented with a bizarre sight. As if a mad wizard had taken the head and feet of a bird and pulled, creating a creature with the neck of a swan and the scaled legs of a dragon. The rain had plastered scarlet feathers flat against its neck and back, while the stumpy wings were riddled with slivers of blue and bright yellow. Long red feathers arched behind it like the tail of a cockerel. Blisteringly yellow eyes stared at him from above a great axe-shaped beak.

“Now now abbil, no need for knives.” A familiar grin poked around the edge of her ruff. Jarlaxle perched on her back on a woven saddle of drow-silk, looking far too pleased with himself. He didn't even have the decency to be muddy. 

“What-” a dozen different things clustered on his tongue, fighting for space. _I’m glad you’re safe. We should split up. Where’s the dragon? Go away. Aren't you angry I left you there?_ “What is that?”

“This is D’ianai, you two have not met.” Jarlaxle leaned forwards and patted her neck as if she were a horse. The creature immediately turned and snapped at his hand. “A paragon of her species, and one of the quickest race-birds I’ve ever bet on.” 

Race-birds. He looked at Jarlaxle's hat, at the space where the feather ought be.

“We spent good money on horses!”

“I liked the horses, I’d never seen one before. Besides you were having such a good time glaring at that man.” He was interrupted as the bird suddenly launched herself at a misfortunate lizard, snatching it off the rocks and swallowing it in one go. “Never mind that. You can pet her if you want. ”

“She’ll have my hand off.”

“Nonsense! She’s the most sweet-tempered lady I have ever known.” He reached forwards to scratch her ruff. She hissed like a kettle on a hot stove. 

“You didn’t think to summon her before!?”

“She does not last so long in this world, and it takes a long time to recharge this spell. I thought best to save it for emergencies. Besides, she’s of a very delicate constitution.” 

“She has teeth on her tongue.” 

“And you have teeth in your temperament, yet I’ve never held it against you.” He reached out to offer a hand up. Artemis paused, remembering that time he had killed a man by smearing poison on his gloves and then introducing himself. He grabbed onto Jarlaxle’s belt instead as he scrambled up to sit behind him. The drow shot him a one-eyed look of something like disappointment. He was too busy trying to seat himself on this bony creature to care overmuch. Or so he told himself. 

A sudden flurry of cold distracted the two of them, and D'ianai started to trot rapidly away towards the distant hills that marked Dunedge. It was very different from horseback, narrow and bouncy. He twisted his hands into Jarlaxle's belt and tried to grip with his knees, but all he could feel were feathers. 

“Where'd you get this thing?”

“I stole her.” Jarlaxle squinted into the dark, and then refocused to sulk at him. “You don’t understand, abbil, her owner was going to send her to the blood orchards because she lost one race! What a waste that would have been!”

Artemis remembered the horse-races of the eastern deserts and grimaced. 

“The owner wouldn’t sell her when she was winning, I take it.”

“Well, of course not.”

“And then she just so happened to lose a race.” 

“Everyone has off-days, abbil,” Jarlaxle sniffed. “Particularly if you feed them half a pound of lizard-flank beforehand." 

He seemed as if he were about to say more, but then his whole body stiffened and his eyes went wide. Paz'ac appeared over the hills, the air parting around her with a sound like tearing cloth. D'ianai took off so suddenly that he had to grab onto Jarlaxle to keep his balance. The rain and low cloud and dark was no impediment to the dragon. He looked back to see the faint morning light catch on Paz'ac's scales as she took a gliding leap towards them. But she had learned from crashing through the muddy rivers- now she springboarded from hill to hill, pacing them. She vanished behind a cluster of boulders as Jarlaxle urged D'ianai into cover, but a great cloud of cold came drifting over the hill after them. 

He twisted so that his cloak caught the edges of the frost blast. Even so he felt his skin chill, heard the mud beneath them splinter and crack. D'ianai croaked in alarm and the world slid briefly sideways as she skidded on a frozen stream. He grabbed onto the saddle for stability, his left hand alarmingly numb. 

Temporary. That had to be temporary. 

Rather than chasing them down and trying to blast them, she was breathing into the wind and letting it carry the cold towards them. Urging them into a panicked scramble, to tire them out that she might collect them at her leisure. 

Of all things, he had never quite heard Jarlaxle _growl._

"Abbil, take the reins!" 

Absolutely not, he wanted to say, but Jarlaxle moved too quick, passing the leather strips back to him, putting a hand on his shoulder and flipping over him all in one movement. He vanished up to his elbow in his hat, rummaging madly. D'ianai tilted her head to study him with one piercing yellow eye and snarled. For lack of anything else to do he snarled back.

“Now where is it - ah hah!”

From the corner of his eye, he saw the drow produce a curved red wand, trimmed and edged with vivid yellow. Having had such a thing pulled on him, he knew it as a wand of fireballs. But after that he could see no more, for D’ianai spotted the dragon, squawked like a great chicken and took off at a sprint. The world lit up behind him and he heard Jarlaxle crow with delight, but he didn't dare look back. The diatryma was much, much faster than a horse. The world blurred in front of him, images resolving themselves and lurching out of the dark with mere feet to spare. Take the reins, indeed, it was all he could do to hold on and try to steer the beast away from the floodwaters. He crouched low to her outstretched neck as another orange flash lit the world behind him, another flare of heat.

D’ianai turned sharply and he felt a great chill as Paz’ac overshot them, the rush of air as curved talons whistled overhead. She roared in frustration. His ears rang. D’ianai leaped, his stomach lurching, and of all things the needles of a fir tree started to bite at his legs. She had jumped onto a fallen log, carried down from the mountains by the floods, and now raced up along it and jumped once more. Artemis braced himself as they landed, the diatryma skidding through the mud before catching herself on solid ground.

Left, they needed to swing left. The slightest twitch of his hand had her careening off to the side hurtling through a stream and then crashing madly up a set of carved steps.

A dull whump and a muttered curse told him Jarlaxle’s wand had run out of charges. And in the worst possible place, for the ground now flattened out around them. All their dipping and diving and sharp turns couldn’t hide them now. Looking back, he saw Paz'ac shake her wings out and take flight proper. Over a flat plain the dragon would catch them with ease, and she knew it. 

_Cut him loose._ Jarlaxle was small, but drow were densely built. The diatryma would move faster without him. 

No, he surely had it bound to him in some fashion. Like as not the bird would simply disappear from under him if he tried such a thing. 

He thought it was thunder at first, a great boom that seemed to shake the ground under him. The horizon ahead of him flashed, briefly lighting the outline of a stone fortress. That was new. Most desert towns didn’t even built walls of stone, never mind such great monuments.

Paz’ac roared and twisted aside. Artemis felt as much as saw the air shift and contort around a great black sphere. Magic? Metal? 

Either way, a welcome distraction. 

And the dragon was enough of a distraction in turn, that the yellow-clad soldiers didn’t notice them skirting around the bottom of the wall. D’ianai finally began to slow, in a series of boucey, jostling steps, and clicked her beak twice as if satisfied with herself. Jarlaxle laughed weakly under his breath and leaned back against him, bumping him with the brim of his hat. He was hot to the touch, and had lost his raincloak somewhere in their mad dash. 

“Are we anywhere near this fabled town, abbil? I could do with a drink.”

“There.” 

Lights glimmered through the rain, warm and orange. Dunedge was a decent sized town, enough for a man like him to vanish. And yet he could not focus on this new relief. 

“You aren’t angry.” Jarlaxle didn't hide anger well, and Artemis made it his business to learn a crimelord's temperment and mannerisms.

"On the contrary, I am relieved." 

“People make all kinds of a fuss if I leave them in combat.” Never mind that he was an assassin first and a fighter second. Never mind that he did his best work from a position of secrecy. 

“Oh, don’t be silly.” Jarlaxle twisted around and leaned forwards to drape an arm around him. Artemis twisted out from under it and he huffed. “There’s be very little point in us both getting captured, abbil. And besides, they wouldn’t kill me right away.”

 _That is worse._ Artemis didn’t need to say it out loud. _It is much worse if they don’t intend to kill you quickly. If they mean to have fun about it._

“Look,” he said instead, and Jarlaxle scrambled up to peer over his shoulder.

“A town!?” 

He was nearly vibrating with excitement. Artemis could have taken his hat right off his head, such was his focus. Why such excitement over a collection of dusty villages, that had grown together around a crossroads? Dunedge wasnt a town, not really, it couldnt have more than a few thousand people. But, ah, Jarlaxle had never seen such a thing. All he had ever known was Menzobarrenzan or the cold empty tunnels of the Underdark. 

He squinted. Did they have the - yes, the blue bunting stretched between the buildings, the slanting tarps that directed the worst of the water into roadside drains.

Rainpeace was a strange time of year, less a religious holiday than it was a mass cultural decision. During the week of the rains, all was to be at peace so that folk could focus on the important task of gathering water for the coming year. There were no public duels, no bareknuckle fights, no executions. Everyone coming to the town was made welcome, as if they were old friends or extended family. Within limits. Murderers and bandits were arrested on sight. But they had never seen his face, didn't know him as a threat. All they knew was the Thorn, the Shade, the Snake. And all that was known of him was a middling sized man of middling features. No one knew what the Shade looked like, and no one remembered Enteri's face. His eyes, yes, but not his face. 

No, the peace of the rain was for Jarlaxle’s benefit more than his. They would hesitate to attack him on sight. And hopefully, once he had performed all his usual tricks and charmed half the guards, they wouldn’t want to hang him or burn him alive. 

“Welcome to Dunedge.”


	15. Chapter 15

Jarlaxle didn’t quite know what to make of Dunedge. For a moment he thought it an illusion, these mirages that Artemis had warned him of. All those little lights looked like stars. Only slowly did he begin to pick out the familiar shapes of civilization. 

The houses were the wrong shape, squared off or rounded up into a dome like some strange gigantic hat. So different. The buildings were no more than three floors high, not like the great towers of the underdark, with flat or gently slanted roofs. Water poured off them into great barrels in the street. But they were houses. He saw shapes moving within, heard voices over the rain. 

Jarlaxle hesitated, out in the dark. 

Another place. Another people. This was no play-act, no idle thought. A town, a real solid place full of people. 

What would he do, if they wouldn’t have him either? 

_Survive._

But he wanted to live. He wanted to- he wanted-

A hand on his back made him twitch. Artemis pushed him forwards two steps. 

“Come on.”

“You should go ahead,” he said stiff. “We shouldn’t be seen together. I am drow, and the Kingdom will surely be circulating descriptions of us-” 

“Not to a land they are at war with. Besides, better for me if we go together. A man walking alone out of the desert for Rainpeace is a criminal. With another, he is just a traveller.”

That was both damnably manipulative, and likely quite true. Yet he couldn’t move. He had nothing here, no reputation, no name, nothing. No one. He couldn't go back to that, powerless and helpless-

Artemis kicked a puddle at him and he whirled with a hiss of outrage. 

“Come on. I want to get warm and clean, and find a bed.” 

“Why abbil, just the one?” His voice wasn't quite as airy as he wanted it to be. But he was heartened to catch just the edge of amusement on Enteri’s face as he chivvied him up into the lantern light. He went shirking, as if he were a youngling dragged before a house-priestess. The town didn't want him, he could feel it. The tarps buckled and dripped water on his hat. The lanterns glinted, hurting his eyes. A cobble shifted under his boot, trying to trip him. Of course it didn’t want him here. He was a drow. Drow did naught but kill and ruin all that was different from them. 

He coiled back from the street. No one had noticed him, not yet, a stranger coming in from the desert. If he turned, he could go, he could-

 _No._

He took a breath, setting his teeth. Settled his shoulders down, lifted his chin. No, he had worked for this. He would _carve_ a place for himself if he had to. 

And so focused was he on himself, that he missed the first of three things Artemis would do that evening. He missed that Artemis saw him putting courage on like a cloak, missed how he smiled quick and sharp as a knife flashing in the dark. 

Jarlaxle’s first trial came almost immediately, for a woman in blue robes approached them with towels.

“Peace be upon you,” she started in the manner of something ritualistic, falling silent as her eyes landed on him. Jarlaxle's tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and he could say not a thing in his own defense. 

“And you.” Artemis reached past him, taking a towel and plonking it over his head with absolutely no sense of decorum. 

“Brute,” Jarlaxle growled, scrambling his way out from underneath. But a clever brute, for his words returned to him, his senses. “You will crush my poor hat.” 

And their squabbling seemed to give the woman back her voice too, for though she eyed them with caution she offered a tremulous smile. 

“You have been here for the festival before?”

“Aye,” said Artemis. He had never heard him speak as such, and with such an accent. “Market’s in the usual place?”

Market? His thoughts hooked onto that, brimming with excitement, before skittering away into observation of the crowd. The fashion tended towards long and draping, for men and women and those who looked like they might fall between. Long cream gowns with broad sleeves fell to ankle and wrist, clasped tight by sleeveless overcoats of blue and green and yellow. Jewel-toned slippers flashed beneath embroidered hems. And oh, there was a fashion to match the shoe to the colour of the overcoat! How pretty. They all covered their heads, with wraps of cloth or draped veils or hats nearly as broad and magnificent as his own. They moved arm-in-arm, meandering in their chatter. Were they all foolish, or was this place simply no so dangerous as Menzobarrenzan? 

The latter, he decided, for though no one drew a blade on him, he felt their attention linger. Maybe he ought wear a disguise, he thought. But he didn’t want to. Drizzt didn’t. He wanted to be seen, wanted to see what they thought of him. 

“Abbil, people are following us.” He reached up to hitch the scarf around his face a little more closely. 

“They’ll get bored. Act normal.” Artemis paused briefly. “Human normal, not drow-normal.” 

Jarlaxle was rather abruptly introduced to the concept of dogs. A galloping monster with a shaggy white coat and far too many teeth appeared out of the crowd at hip height and snarled at him. The sound was of a timbre that told him violence followed, and he was scrambling up onto the nearest windowsill in seconds, much to the outrage of the occupant. He drew his shoulders up as a stocky woman came at him with a broom, trapped between the barking hound and the shouting housewife. 

Artemis was no help at all, watching from the mouth of the laneway opposite with something like a smile. But to his credit he did intervene when two town guards appeared, bearded and batons out and eyeballing him with caution. 

“Is that a drow?”

“I am,” he said, lifting an arm to protect himself from the hard end of a broom. One of the men almost jumped at the sound of his voice. 

“You can talk?”

“I can indeed, and am reliably informed I do so far too much-” he twisted as the housekeeper put the wide end of the broom to him and shoved. Catching onto the windowshutter, he tucked his legs up at the hound snapped at him, and cushioned his crash-landing on a bristling Enteri. 

“Call off that dog.” Much to his surprise, Artemis’s accent deepened and he launched into a scolding to rival that of any elder priestess. “Why are you walking around in Rainfest with a battlehound?” 

He did not like dogs, Jarlaxle decided. They were menacing and had far too many teeth. At least Artemis only growled at him. 

But now, it seemed as if the town had changed its humour towards him. The buildings leaned in close around him as if in conversation, sheltering him. Artemis nudged him forwards through the crowd, until the streets suddenly opened up into magnificence. 

Lights. Dozens of them, hundreds. Orange and pink and yellow and rich ruby red, suncatchers and chimes glittering and twirling above him. Glass, melted and molded into the shape of the sun, the moon, the stars. Crystals carved into the shape of fishes and flowers, innumerable little silver bells, hanging strings of glass beads and folded paper. And because of their nature, each little piece reflected the light back one thousand fold, took candlelight and made it into a brilliant spray of diffuse warmth. Here, there was no darkness. Here, the light did not hurt his eyes. Here, the ground was solid. For an immeasurable moment he was beyond himself, transported by the sight. 

Sublime. 

Eventually he blinked and came back to himself and looked to where the market stretched in front of him. Surely this must be like the ocean Artemis spoke of, an undulation of azure silk, tents and tarps rippling with the movement of the wind overhead and the people beneath. 

A dwarf started briefly at the sight of him and then started to call him over, gesturing to a fine display of ornate headpieces. He assessed her wares with the eye of a thief. All those gems were coloured glass, finely cut so as to resemble the real thing, and that golden wire had a distinctive gleam that meant half the base was copper. Nonetheless, they were perfectly handsome. He started to haggle her for a fine silver one, with strings of hanging pearls that would dangle very nicely off the brim of his hat. 

He was indeed so distracted by his bartering that he didn’t notice the amount of eyes lingering on him. Stares that varied from curious to hostile. And some that shifted towards hunger as he wound his way from stall to stall, all his usual dangerous aura quite subsumed in wonder. He missed the second thing Artemis did, which was to shift closer. And glare so fiercely at the poor man approaching them with a silk flower that he withered quite away. And how after that, the other would-be suitors kept their distance. 

Then Jarlaxle found the bookseller. A scarlet tiefling woman, stretched out on a battered chaise lounge and smoking a pipe. One eyelid dipped in a lazy yellow wink as he approached, a forked tail twitching. He spotted a very fine collection of small, velvet bound books tucked underneath the couch, lovingly arranged to display their untitled spines and blank covers. Each was small enough to fit into a palm, or perhaps a pocket. He could guess their nature and knew enough to see a type of coding in the colour. Red for humans, blue for dwarves, green for elves. 

Though they attracted him from the standpoint of a collector, he was familiar enough with such material. The tiefling huffed a cloud of fragrant smoke as he smiled and turned instead to an illustrated hardcover, with a picture of the world and its continents on the cover. An atlas. The artist had lingered over this, he thought, touching an ocean made of enamel, a goldleaf compass. By the first page he knew he had to have it. The artist had included little sketches of local people, of animals and plants. This wolf looked as if she might leap off the page. This panther- _this panther looked familiar._

He turned back to the inner cover. _The traveling observations of one elven ranger, and companion._

Oh, indeed. 

So enchanted was he that he missed a third and final trick on Enteris part. How he passed the proprietor a coin and palmed the green velvet book. 

The tiefling wrapped up the atlas for him in two layers of oilskin, and took a good minute to seal every possible gap closed with red wax. Jarlaxle held it close to his chest for a moment, allowing himself a burst of sentimentality, before sliding it away into an interdimensional pocket. 

Artemis turned them left, and his stomach suddenly growled as he was accosted with the aroma of a dozen and more things cooking all at once. They ate outside in public? Oh, that was a scandal. He loved it. 

Artemis seemed more familiar with this area, and dismissed several stalls on criteria he couldn’t possibly begin to guess at. But he couldn’t be cross, not when Artemis turned instead into a little tent and he was greeted by the sight of an entire antelope on a spit. The juices dripped and sizzled into a long metal tray full of sliced potatoes and onions and any number of bright little vegetables he couldn’t quite name. The long day made itself known to him in a burst of hunger, and he ate his way through two servings at breakneck speed. 

"This was delicious," he mumbled over the edge of a glass, peering up at Artemis through his lashes. An over performance, but Artemis met his eyes for a moment longer than usual. 

Music interrupted them, a kind of sweet yearning thrill. This was how he first discovered the viol, in the hands a young man man wandering from stall to stall in search of coins from the crowds. He recognised something of himself there, a blend of skill and beauty bent to profit. And then he did something a drow should never do. He closed his eyes and lost himself in it. 

Always, he had wanted. Wanted for nameless, unknowable things. For food, for gemstones, for safety and love and power. 

But in this moment with Artemis sitting so close their knees touched, under a thousand tiny lights and surrounded by music so sweet, he was content.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dicks touch about halfway through the chapter <3

Paz’ac came to a heavier landing than she would like, circling only once in warning of her approach. She folded herself into the clear carpeted square her soldiers had set up for her, her wings rotating in their sockets as she hovered and coiled down first her tail, then her hindquarters, and finally came to rest on all fours. 

Oh, but it was good to rest. Rain steamed off her scales. Her wings trembled and they would not stop. She couldn’t tell if it was anger, exhaustion, or battle fury. All of those, perhaps, and more. 

Her soldiers rushed towards her, babbling. She had been gone quite some time. Long enough to worry them.

Too long. It had been a mistake to chase the criminals. But she had wanted them in her teeth, wanted their blood. The strength of the desire shook her. She had never known such hatred. She did not hate the places she conquered, no, she merely wanted them to submit so that all this warring places would be one, would be united, and so would have nothing to fight. 

But she thought suddenly of the drow. Of a place united in its people and faith, who battled each other nonetheless. 

The thought disturbed her, and she turned gladly to the reports from her soldiers and scouts. They brought her reports of provisions delayed by rain, of trouble-makers in the town whipped for trying to raise a rebellion. All well and good. 

The chefs cooked a horse for her, a mount fatally wounded on the battlefield. Nothing went to waste amongst her soldiers. She ate and forced herself to her feet. The supply trains were trapped in the flooding fields. But she knew she could carry one cart at a time, and so set about heaving herself slowly through the rain. The caravan knew she was coming and lit bright red flares to attract her attention, reaching up as she flew towards them. 

So small. Those little hands, those fragile arms. 

How could they possibly bring themselves to make war on each other? Didn’t they see how beautiful they were, how fragile? 

The king said often how all mortals were foolish. A tragedy of their nature. 

The whole world was so difficult for them. A mere cloud made it impossible for them to travel, might even lead to them drowning or losing half their livelihood, swept away by the rains. 

And she let them rig up a harness and climb atop the supply cart, and tried to think of the world from the perspective of a human.

…

Jarlaxle could have spent the entire rainy morning wandering Dunedge, but after leaving the market Enteri took a sudden left hand turn down a side-street. There he found an inn for them, the Three Lemons, and all but frogmarched Jarlaxle inside. Named for the great tree in the courtyard, it had a private aspect that appealed to both of them, and a barkeep who smiled and didn't ask them too many questions. 

“One room,” he said briskly when the innkeeper eyed them. Jarlaxle waited until she had led them up to their lodgings, until the door had closed before turning on him with a grin. 

“Don’t look so smug. Did you see the price they were charging?”

Jarlaxle laughed and set about exploring. It was a finely appointed place, to his eyes. Small enough to keep the heat in, with two well-stuffed if threadbare chairs and a sturdy little table. The floor was layered with sheepskins and he kicked his boots off to press them into the wool, practically purring with pleasure. 

He could see why Artemis favoured it. While an agile man could climb from the window up onto the red tiled roof, it was much harder to come down that way. The walls were plastered smooth, tricky to climb. The floorboards outside the door squeaked underfoot. Even the windows were paned with glass rather than simple wooden shutters, which he found terribly exotic. The glass had coloured patterns set into it, greens and vivid yellow which in turn threw lovely splashes of colour on the wooden floorboards. 

Jarlaxle stretched himself out on the bed and closed his eyes. It felt safe. Safer, at least. And with a few tripwires on the door and window he could rest easy. Artemis was already poking through the wardrobes and cupboards, muttering at the sight of dust and throwing the occasional stray scorpion out the window and onto unsuspecting passersby. 

Despite all his nefarious intentions Jarlaxle drifted off into a lazy rest, half conscious of the world around him, of Artemis stretching out on the bed next to him. They dozed for a good half the day, through daylight and well into evening. He felt himself come conscious very gently indeed, a gradual rousing as if coming up from deep underwater. Jarlaxle smiled sleepily at the ceiling, moving his shoulders against the furs. They were soft indeed, and not so fluffy as to be ticklish. 

He could feel Artemis watching him now, his eyes on his back. He did so when he thought he was not at risk of being noticed, watched him with a calm assessment that he rather enjoyed.

A flying towel startled him out of his smug repose. 

“Wash room will be quiet at this time of day.” 

A little room built onto the back of the inn, the shape of it was familiar to Jarlaxle, with a low roof and stone benches. Soft glowing crystals lit the room, dimly enough that even his eyes didn’t ache. Artemis seemed very determined to get clean, mixing handfuls of oil and salt from the buckets in the corner and scrubbing them up his arms and legs. He was nude but for that towel and seemed to keenly miss his armour, glancing sidelong at the door and pausing whenever there was any burst of noise outside. 

It hadn’t escaped Jarlaxle that Enteri could have come here alone, if he pleased. 

The dim light suited Artemis very nicely, softening the harder lines around his mouth and eyes. He was built heavier than a drow, thicker through the limbs. And so fuzzy, like those peach-fruits he had had smuggled down from the surface, lush and soft to the touch. He rather liked that, Jarlaxle decided. Then again, he liked pretty much everything and everyone he had ever looked at. The only problem to Jarlaxle’s mind was that towel. 

“I’ll rub yours if you rub mine,” he offered and let the smile shine through voice. Enteri turned a suspicious glare on him. “Your back, abbil. Whatever else could I mean?”

Artemis only huffed at him, annoyed and amused together. And much to his delight took something of the initiative, tugging him over towards the benches. The oil made his hands softer, slick against his back and shoulders. He went after his upper back almost immediately, feeling around his right shoulder, the places a swordsman held tension. Jarlaxle started as a knot popped with an audible grind, and couldn’t quite stop himself from sighing with pleasure as a warm looseness followed.

“You’re good with your hands,” he murmured, and had to smile at the exasperated sigh. And let that smile deepen as the hands wandered a little, gliding over his ribs. Enteri moved slowly, testing his reactions. He had gone very quiet, even by his standards, his breathing short and shallow. 

Artemis was not so sure how to respond to invitation, Jarlaxle thought. He eased back, leaning into the humans chest and arching his back just a little, creating an inviting gap between the towel and his hips. Artemis laughed at him, breath warm on his shoulder. 

“That’s not my back,” he managed, a little breathier than he would have liked. But it had been some time, now, and it was warm here. Fingertips shifted over his hip bone and stilled. 

“No.” Artemis shifted back a little, deliberately. “Shall I leave you be?”

“Absolutely not.” He pushed along the bench to bring them together again, tilting his head back into Enteri’s shoulder and smiling as he muttered. “Oh, come, don’t grumble so. I would almost think you weren’t interested at all, the way you carry on-” 

"We live in the same room. We work together. We sleep in the same space. We eat the same food." Artemis blurted it all out in one breath, as if it were an answer. 

"And delightful as that is, I don't care take it as a signal of - " he ran out of words. Artemis was hard enough to dance around at the best of times, and now his thoughts seemed to be made of cotton. He waved a hand vaguely in the air overhead. "Oh, you know what I mean.”

“I am here, what more signal do you need?”

And that said sad things of his experiences with other humans, with any kind of lustful or romantic sentiment. That to simply live with someone was enough, in his mind, to show desire. 

“A kiss wouldn’t hurt.” 

Artemis huffed at that. And Jarlaxle was surprised, if pleasantly, to have his hand drawn back and rough lips pressed carefully to his wrist. A great crash outside had them both jumping apart. Rapidly followed by the outraged wailing of a maid, cursing the rain and the slippery flagstones of the courtyard. Jarlaxle covered his mouth to muffle his sniggers. Even Artemis looked a little entertained. And so different, his hair sticking to his head and his eyes glittering. 

“Upstairs,” Jarlaxle murmured, and this was much better, a private room with a door that locked and a soft bed. He sank onto it easily, leaning back into the pillows and tugging Artemis after him. Better to go under, he decided. He was tired after that mad chase upon D'ianai. Besides, the view from here was exquisite. Peeling his eyepatch off, he let his gaze drift over an absolutely marvellous pair of shoulders. Wasted under all these overworlder shirts. 

Artemis shied away from so direct a study, lifting a hand to trace his collarbones instead. Jarlaxle let his eyelids flutter, murmuring. Just a little dangerous, allowing an assassin so close to his neck. He did so like a touch of danger. That hand shifted down his chest experimentally and he hummed, reaching up along Artemis’ arm. So soft after the oil, and he wondered suddenly if that were deliberate, if Enteri hadn’t wanted to touch him while all dirty and rough from travel.

So endearing. And so clever, for he had left one of his hands just slick enough with oil to glide over Jarlaxle’s skin, along his stiffening cock. 

“Ah,” he managed. His nails had tightened into Artemis’s upper arm, but he didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. “Ah, abbil-”

A thumb shifted up over the skin sheathing his tip, stroked to and fro. Jarlaxle’s breathed hitched. Gods, it had been a while. This was headier than he had anticipated, his control melting away.

Artemis’ hand stilled. He opened his eyes to see Enteri frowning downwards. 

“Is that normal?”

A phrase which cooled his desire entirely. Jarlaxle looked down at himself, briefly confused. All seemed well. 

“Yes?” He squinted at Artemis. Ah. That did look a little different. Smoother. “It functions much the same, I assure you.” 

_I think?_

After the initial bout of dubiousness Enteri approached it with excruciating attention to detail, tracing the ridges with a well-oiled thumb and muttering as they grew harder under his touch. Working his way along them one by one, he reached up to pin Jarlaxle's hand to the bed, tangling their fingers. Jarlaxle dropped back onto the pillow, light-headed with lust. 

“For goodness sake, are you trying to kill me?”

“You’d already be dead.” A soft kiss on his stomach, likely where Artemis would try to stab him. 

“Oh, you think very highly of yourself-” 

And it was at this point that Artemis seemed to realise he could shush him with a kiss. Lips grazed his, a hand coming to cup the back of his head. He stretched out as those lips shifted to his chin, his throat, stretching to run his fingers along Enteri’s spine. 

“Bite me.” He could only manage it as a breath, and he whined as Enteri pulled back in confusion. Digging his nails lightly into his shoulder, he drew him back. “Like that.”

The lips returned, the warm slick of tongue, the sweet sting of teeth at the base of his neck. Carefully, experimentally. He growled in delight and arched under him, leg coiling up, pressing his heel into the bed. 

“Ah, _xas-_ ”

For all his usual contrariness, Enteri was taking instruction very well and had propped himself up to nibble all the way down his neck and collarbone. Jarlaxle felt like he might well dissolve under such attention, clinging to his arms. Artemis finally drew back for air and he opened his eyes to steady himself. Artemis was studying him with much the same expression he used when sharpening a knife, almost fascinated.

He smiled up at him and was finally, finally rewarded with a blush. 

Through great dint of willpower he managed to gather his thoughts. Reaching up, he combed a few stray tufts of dark hair back from Enteri's forehead, let the edges of his nails bite into his scalp. His eyes narrowed a little, hooded almost shut when he reached to graze the shell of his ear and down to cup his face. 

“Tell me what you like.” 

Artemis stirred a little, shaking his head briefly before dipping down to kiss him once more. He tasted faintly of salt. A hand shifted down to take his cock, a low slow slide. Warmth pulsed through his stomach, aching. He twitched as a callused thumb brushed along his ear, Artemis shifting onto his side so as to reach everything comfortably. 

“I had thought this an exaggeration,” Enteri murmured, his voice a low buzz. His smile came unbidden. 

“It depends on the situation- ah- or the person.” Artemis was a quick study, discovering how sensitive the lobe and back edge of his ears were, tugging lightly on a little golden hoop. A bone deep shudder worked its' way through him and the human paused. “Is that painful or good?”

“Yes,” he mumbled, and twisted to free one leg so as to brace himself and try to flip them over. This immediately became something of a wrestling match. Artemis was a little heavier, but Jarlaxle had experience. He even managed to win, briefly, straddling his hips and grinning down at him. Artemis’s hair had gotten just long enough to rumple very attractively. Artemis grabbed his ankle and yanked, landing him flat on his back and entirely winded. He blinked at the ceiling for a disorientated moment before a face popped into view. He’d never seen Enteri look worried before. 

“A little too vigorous there, perhaps.”

“I like vigorous.” He reached for him as Artemis closed his eyes, sighing with exasperation. “The best things in life leave you breathless.”

“Like a stranglehold?” Artemis leaned into the kiss, deepening it. His skin was hot to the touch as he shifted to lie across him, arms bracketing his, fingers curling around his shoulders.

“Hmm.” Jarlaxle tilted his head to get a better angle. “Mm. Perhaps not quite yet.”

“You are joking, surely.” 

“Oh, folk enjoy all kinds of things.” And it would be quite the tale to tell, to have escaped intact the stranglehold of a master assassin. But Artemis suddenly cursed and pulled away. Jarlaxle gasped at the sense of loss, grabbing at his arms. 

“What? What is it?”

“We need supplies,” Enteri looked aggrieved at the thought. Jarlaxle slumped back, frustrated and relieved in equal measure. 

"I have oil and sheaths and things in my pack," he waved vaguely where he had stashed it under the bed. “You’d hardly think I’d be without such important supplies?”

"In the pack for food and water?" It was rare that he saw clear, genuine amusement on Enteri's face.

"They are essentials!" Jarlaxle had smuggled some of his better items out of the underdark. Sheaths of spidersilk, soft to wear and smooth to the touch. A slick, supple oil. Artemis found that one very quickly and even seemed to have a good idea what to do with it, nudging Jarlaxle over onto his stomach. He went with purr, mightily pleased. A tenuous position, trapped beneath a known murderer, but the kisses pressed between shoulderblades settled his nerves. That and the ring of escape on his left hand. He stretched out to knead at the sheets, entirely content. 

It was different. Artemis felt different, smelled different. The way he moved. The way he felt. Smoother in the joining, as he lined them up and slid together. Jarlaxle arched his back, toes curling at a brief moment of pressure- and release, and a sense of fullness.

“Ah.” His fingers clawed in the sheets and he pressed his forehead against the bed. “Ah, gods, _xas._ ” 

His vocal enjoyment seemed to settle Artemis in turn. He reached up to interlink their fingers with one hand and braced himself with the other, gradually easing his weight down onto him and resting his head against his shoulder. Jarlaxle hummed at him. 

“Tired already?” 

“Shut up,” he hissed. 

“Ah, now I can think of my exciting ways in which that could happen-”

Artemis shifted as he spoke, moving inside him. He half-choked and abandoned his jeering, dropping his face onto the pillow. A chuckle vibrated against his shoulder, followed by a slow thrust and the scrape of teeth at the back of his neck. He muffled himself in the bed and Artemis nipped him a little harder for his efforts. 

A hot throb of pleasure pulsed through him, aching in his gums. Artemis moved just enough to settle into a steady rhythm, fingers curling on one hip to pull him closer. Good, yes. Jarlaxle murmured appreciatively as the thrusts deepened. Simple, and absolutely divine.

Artemis grunted in surprise as he shifted to brace a knee against the bed, lifting himself so as to push back into each thrust. A marvel, just how hard mere flesh could feel. 

"Abbil, _faster,_ " he breathed, and managed a breathy laugh as Artemus flicked his ear before complying.

The climax crept up on him swiftly. He let himself be swept along in it, hands twisting into fabric. Faintly he heard Artemis gasp, pulled along after him. 

After, he summoned just enough energy to drag the cotton throw over them. 

“You are exquisite,” he murmured. Artemis muttered something against his back and pressed his forehead into his shoulders. For the first time in his life, Jarlaxle feel into a genuine sleep. He couldn’t say he cared for it, restful as it was. Dreams shifted and fluxed in his mind, images that had never been real. No wonder Artemis frowned so much. 

When he woke, there was a single sliced apple on a plate beside him and a glass of water. 

And Artemis’s raincloak was gone.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The old Christmas retail madness has hit. I'll be updating every two weeks for the next while, until I actually have free time again.

He didn’t _feel_ any different. 

Rain rattled off terracotta slates, shaped to catch and channel it down into the streets below. The market was an orange gleam off to his left, the fortress a dark hulking shape to the south. Artemis cast his mind back, assessing as coolly as he could. It was only sex, after all. Different, certainly. Enjoyable. The memory of enjoying it quite so much unsettled him a little. It opened him up to the weakness of wanting. 

He had climbed up onto the rooftops as much to distance himself from events as to avoid the crowds. Now he hunched in the lee side of a warehouse roof, watching the antics in the tailoring shop just below. He had worked as a tailor, once. It had allowed him to determine the social events a particularly evasive politician was about to attend, based on the clothes he had ordered. 

It had looked like a heart attack. He was still rather proud of that one. 

A part of him wanted to take all he owned and leave. The desert was difficult to navigate in the flooding season, but he had done so before. 

_Don’t be such a coward._ There were advantages to Jarlaxle’s continued company. An extra set of eyes- or eye, given the patch. Extra hands in battle. An endless supply of solutions for every problem, real or imagined. His absolute delight in every little part of the world, from a scorpion to a rainstorm to humble country market. Such wonder was almost contagious. Enteri had never experienced anything like it. But he thought he might know a shadow of it watching Jarlaxle watch a rainstorm, study an old book, try to fit an entire pork-knuckle into his mouth. Studying the drow helped him learn the world afresh, notice details he had dismissed. How to flirt with a glance and threaten with a smile. All things that could be of use to him. 

He balked at that thought. Transactional and nothing more? Was this some desperate effort to keep Jarlaxle around?

_-you’re too old to whore yourself out-_

-as desperate as the aging consorts in Calimport who grew more frantic with every passing day, as their place in the world grew ever more precarious- 

_-what are you doing?-_

Learning.

Complacency was a dangerous thing for an assassin. Particularly one who was getting older. And he could feel it in himself, a certain slowness in him that hadn’t been there five years ago. Assassins didn’t tend to live much longer than their thirties unless they had a network to back up their experience. Such a fate had always struck him as grim, relinquishing his independence for safety. But these last few months had been some of the more interesting in his life. Challenging himself against the Bregan D’aerthe, inadvertently befriending Jarlaxle, sharpening his wits against him. He could work with this life, hone a new edge. 

Jarlaxle was about the only person he’d had ever met that he thought might be able to keep up with him. That he thought he might be able to tolerate.

Besides, they had not agreed to continue in anything. Given drow culture Jarlaxle was unlikely to assume any kind of exclusivity. The drow was probably wandering the market right now, alone. He had walked out on him, after all. Jarlaxle would be well within his rights to go find companionship elsewhere. Perhaps that fopdoodle flower seller, or that dolt with the viol. 

He bristled. _They_ could have any normal person. _His_ options for partners were considerably more limited. 

Ah. So this was jealousy. It felt like blackroot poisoning. 

Grumbling, he picked out a path down the the side of the warehouse and into the laneways, following his nose towards the market.

…

Jarlaxle enjoyed the apple. Such an excellent fruit, the perfect combination of sweet and sharp. 

It was perhaps unsurprising that Artemis had needed to go slinking off. He was habituated to solitude, after all. And this whole scenario had to be a strange one. Companionship and sex often came with a sense of vulnerability. That in turn could throw a person. It was a useful side effect. 

In a way, he was glad Artemis had left. He felt a little raw himself. Very warm and very loose. That kind of mind-set that left him sloppy, prone to kindness and other such mistakes. 

Just as well he was here, then, where such slips only landed him in a puddle instead of in trouble. 

He took an extremely lazy morning, half-dozing, the roof beams sliding into focus above him. He twisted his fingers into the sheepskin, tangling them in the hair. Such a simple, humble place, a room and a bed in a little town in the desert. And yet it felt more divine to him than all the temples of Menzobarrenzan, this bed more sacred than any altar. If there was a holiness to be found in the life of a drow, it was in the rite of walking with a lover, the sacrament of eating with them and laying with them. Not in some cold stone place under the eyes of the heartless. 

He roused himself and sat for a long time, wrapped in the blanket and listening to the rain. That too seemed like it ought be divine. Perhaps it was, simply because he felt it so. 

He huffed at himself, searching for his cloak. It had been some time since he’d been so introspective, so concerned with thoughts of philosophy. Perhaps a little isolation was good for the soul. All his life had been a hothouse of connections. A drow needed a network if he wanted any kind of power. Always be had been around underlings, contacts, contracts. It was rare that he had any time alone at all. 

Artemis certainly liked to take time to himself and seemed very hearty for it. All he could hope was that last nights physicality hadn’t frightened him off entirely. 

Eventually he decided to go out. And this, to move only to his own inclination and desires, this was pleasing. Even the loneliness of it was sweet, after a fashion. He went walking wrapped in his finest cloak, enjoying the sight he made. He even went and got some of that black coffee drink Artemis was so fond of, with a small crispy sweet pastry that flaked all over his hands. He went back to buy another for his abbil. And then he went back to his room, locked the doors and closed the shutters, and took out all his trinkets. This holiday had been marvelous, and he intended to make it his life. But all the same, best he check in and remind his men just who was in charge. 

The projection drained him. The touch of the Underdark, the reminder of obligations and difficulties and power dynamics. He sat back an hour later and rubbed his temples, wishing suddenly that Enteri was here so he could complain and have the human scold him or tease him or laugh at him. Or say very little, sitting in the window and sharpening his knifes, listening silently. 

Artemis always listened to him. Even the things he didn’t want him hearing. 

To stave off his sudden clinginess, he went through all of Enteri’s things. A dangerous game, as all the best games were, for he trapped his clothes with poisoned barbs and interlaid them with sheets of paper to reveal any tampering. Fragrant paper, scented with clove as an aid against moths and mildew. He sifted through the shirts carefully, admiring their texture, how some of them were lined with silk as an aid against the heat and stab wounds. 

Artemis dressed to blend in, but he did have a fondness for black. As well he ought. It suited him. 

The necklace of flint was missing. That meant he was wearing it. Jarlaxle knew a sudden pang of fondness and felt his way along a spare knife-belt, lifting each blade and weighing it in his hands. Human steel, heavier than than of drow, shimmering with patterns like those the raindrops left on the window. 

Oh! A book! 

A familiar book. 

Ah, it had diagrams. Marvelous. 

Artemis reappeared after a few hours, all wrapped up in his grey cloak and looking to Jarlaxle’s fond eye a little like a raincloud as he made his way into the courtyard.

 _What do you like?_ He hadn’t paid much heed to it at first, how Artemis was barely interested in the world around him except as an obstacle to be negotiated. A challenge to be met. He didn’t seem to enjoy the vista and isolation of the desert, nor the lights and companionship of a town. Jarlaxle could find pleasure and enjoyment almost anywhere. He forced himself to do so, and clung tight to those memories in times of privation.

But what about Artemis? What did he turn to when the night was long and cold and dark? 

Jarlaxle pushed open the shutter and thrilled down to him, rewarded with a glance that lacked some of the usual edge. 

“Abbil! I got you a pastry.” 

Artemis had gone shopping too, for he came back with a roasted chicken for them to share, cooked with rosemary and sumac. Jarlaxle cooed in delight.

“Let’s get you out of those wet clothes.” He had read that one in a book and thought it mightily clever. Artemis huffed at him and twisted to half wrap him in the wet side of his cloak. Jarlaxle shrieked in protest. 

“So cruel to me, when I went out in the rain to pick up supplies.” 

Artemis looked cautious. And intrigued. 

“Such as?”

“Fresh food, medicine, bandages…why, were you thinking of something else?”

Artemis grunted at him and pulled his hat down over his eyes. 

“Tease.”

“Hardly. Think of it as an invitation.” This was new territory for him, after a fashion. It had been a good two centuries since he had lived with a lover, and in those circumstances they were alliances where the power was very much not in his favour. 

“Hm.” The corner of Enteri’s mouth twisted, and he reached out to trace a line down one clavicle and up the other. “Rare I’m invited anywhere. What if I didn’t want such a letter?”

Ah. Jarlaxle knew a pang of disappointment, warring against desire. But this had always being a possibility. He lifted Artemis’s hand to press his cheek against the knuckles. 

“Then I would remember last night very fondly, and hope that you did too.”

“And go find some bard to mend your poor broken heart?”

“Of course!” 

Artemis made a disparaging noise. 

“He’s too young for you.” 

It was natural that Artemis would test for traps. His heart was like a bird, after all, fluttering low in his throat. 

It was a rare opportunity before him. Enteri was perhaps vulnerable in ways he hadn’t anticipated, stunted by the life that had forged such a dangerous man. He would have to be careful, not to do damage by carelessness. 

Fortunately, he was a thief. And all good thieves were light of touch. 

It was easier this time. And mightily satisfying to have clothing in the way, all the better for pulling. Artemis growled when he tugged him closer by the shirt collar and he felt a pinch against his stomach. He didn't need to glance down to know it was a blade.

"Really, abbil. I'm not opposed to a little scratching, but do warn a fellow."

"Knives? Now I know you're toying with me."

"With you, never." He shifted against him and reached to take his hand, watching his face all the while. "With the flat of it. You're looking to scratch, not to cut."

"That's what you think," he said, and Jarlaxle twitched as he tilted his hand just enough for the blade to slice through his lace-closed trousers. Jarlaxle pulled him closer and murmured into his ear.

“You owe me new laces.” 

“I bought some in the market earlier.” Artemis sounded so pleased with himself and Jarlaxle smiled as a hand eased through his underthings, tracing a line along his cock. “Supplies.” 

“Ah, abbil, so clever.”

Artemis made a soft noise, almost a laugh, that slid into a murmur as he discovered Jarlaxle already half-hard and slick to the touch. 

“You came prepared I see.”

“There’s an old drow saying, _come prepared, prepare to-_ ”

Artemis decided to shush him there. He hummed into the kiss, deepening to a groan as Enteri eased him out of his underthings proper. He hooked his leg over Enteri's hip in retaliation, grinding against him, and laughed as Artemis struggled to get a hand under his waistband. But he persevered and finally pushed them down across his hips.

Amongst many other things, they were a good match for one another in height. Artemis was just tall enough to slot into him, with a little bit of twisting and adjustment and snickering. The human shifted his grip on his thigh, supporting his leg. Jarlaxle murmured and braced himself against Enteri’s shoulders, toying with the hair at the nape of his neck. He'd forgotten quite how this felt, the tightness that came with standing, the friction. 

_"Ah-"_ he started as a hand slid up his spine, coming to cradle the back of his head so that he didn't bump it against the wall.

“This is hardly comfortable,” Artemis managed, although he sounded like he was enjoying himself immensely.

“Oh, on the contrary.” He opened his eyes a sliver, grinning as Enteri’s face came into focus. “Unless making love to a drow is too taxing, even for such a mighty assassin as yourself-”

Artemis kissed him to quiet him, and a hand tightened on his rump as they rocked together.

They sprawled out on the bed afterwards, Jarlaxle shifting. Damn enjoyable, but terribly hard on the joints. Artemis shifted to brush a hand over his side, expression thoughtful. 

“The rains are easing off. We should leave tomorrow.” 

So soon? He turned his head to study Enteri's face. Such a fine confluence of bone and muscle and blood. Such a treasure, and so many things wanted him dead. 

_Mine,_ he thought as he dozed off. 

They awoke to the sound of cannon fire.


	18. Chapter 18

The very rain that had given them cover, that had granted them safe passage now turned traitor. Paz’ac had used the low lying grey clouds as cover. Over the course of the last few days she had flown steadily to and fro across the rivers, hiding from the cannons. With each pass she carried a handful of men. Flying steadily, she had carried enough to form an advance force, enough to take the fortress during the night and spike the cannons. 

Now an army bearing blue and silver flags advanced on Dunedge.

Jarlaxle resented the timing mightily. He had wanted a nice breakfast before they left. Instead now he tossed everything he owned onto the bedsheet, wrapped it up into a tight ball and started to shove it into his hat. Artemis came over to lean on top of the bunched fabric, jabbing it with his elbows.

“How do you manage to gather so much in so little time?”

“Skill and daring.” Jarlaxle took advantage of his distraction to kiss his cheek and delighted in his frowning. What he had previously often interpreted as suspicion, Jarlaxle now knew to be thoughtfulness. 

“Don’t scowl so, you’ll get wrinkles.” He gave his hat a final shake, the interior rattling and crashing like a drawer full of saucepans, and set it back on his head. Enteri was already packed. He lived everywhere with one foot out the door, always ready to run. 

Artemis went quiet as footsteps clattered up the stairs outside, towards their door. 

And then past it. A door slammed at the end of the corridor. 

One of the other lodgers making a run for it, no doubt. The townguard were making a lot of noise, but they couldn’t hold the army at bay, and dared not turn to violence lest it provoke the soldiers. They’d been making their way steadily through every building in the town. Searching. 

Jarlaxle shifted sidelong to the window, peering down into the courtyard. He saw two men on horses there, blue raincloaks over silver armour. Artemis took him by the elbow and pulled them towards the door. In silence he went to the left of the stairs and Jarlaxle to the right. He stepped over the squeaky board and crouched, leaning forwards and supporting himself on his fingertips. There was already soldiers in the commonroom, holding up a poster. 

“These men. Have you seen them?”

“Never before in my life.” The innkeeper stared at the muddy footprints they’d tracked in over her carpet, mouth curling. “I’ll thank you to book a room or get out. You scare my customers.”

Artemis inhaled very softly. He did that whenever he’d spotted a problem. Jarlaxle glanced back. Shadows flickered under the door at the end of the hall. If someone came out and spoke to them, it would ruin any chance they had at stealth. 

“Ma’am, these are wanted men with a fair reward for information.” 

“Best get yourself hence and find them, then.” She scowled at his sword. “I heard this Kingdom of yours had lost reason, but to wave a sword around during Rainfest? Have you lost all decency too?”

 _Brave woman,_ Jarlaxle thought. All drow teaching said that humans were lesser beings, that the women were pathetic and weak. His experiences told him contrary. 

To her credit, she was well aware of the two of them sneaking down the stairs and heading for the side door. She did her utmost to distract the soldiers, elaborating at length how horrid it was that they broke all tradition, how they ought to be ashamed and indeed how she had heard that their dragon-commander was known to eat prisoners of war. The soldier began to loudly argue that they weren’t invading at all, merely investigating. 

Jarlaxle slipped a gold coin under an abandoned cup as he left, easing the door closed behind him. 

Artemis was already halfway up the wall of the alley. He glared as Jarlaxle levitated up past him, waving. He landed lightly on the roof and looked out over the town, all alight yet in the rain. Orange and pink and gold. 

It had been nice. To be a lovesick idiot. To be a companion. 

But now there was work to be done. 

He turned to Artemis with his brightest, sincerest smile. 

“You go on ahead, abbil. I’ll follow.”

Jarlaxle fancied he saw a thousand half-formed words flash across Artemis' face before he darted off along the roof. And that, that was a good thing. How easily he could turn away and leave. Nothing good had ever come to those that couldn’t disentangle themselves from him. He wondered sometimes if that was Her revenge. Not a fury rained upon him, but on whomever came too close. As if he were a toxin, slow and inevitable, bringing death to all around him. 

Jarlaxle moved off along the rain-slick roof, enchanted boots gripping the tiles. He paused to push a chimney into the street and onto an unfortunate soldier. The resultant clang was loud enough to resound through half the town, drawing the soldiers and townguard alike. Skipping from roof to roof, he changed out his earrings for those that would hide him, his bracelets for those of shielding, his rings for those of escape and light feet. Things that made the eye slide over him, that made him a shadow. Nothing that would dissuade the dragons' senses. Just enough to confound a human. 

Paz’ac’s camp gleamed yellow in the gathering dark, a hasty assemblage of tents. Difficult to do in the rain. Sloppy. They had laid down slats of wood and canvas to try and make the soil habitable. But the nearest tent began to fold in on itself after a slight kick to the supports, much to the displeasure of the occupants. Jarlaxle stilled, briefly overcome with the desire to sow havoc. Oh, he could have a fine time of it, spilling oil and starting fires, dropping valuable documents into the churned muddy earth, releasing the horses-

But none of that would help him, not in the long run. And Jarlaxle always had to think ahead. He was too good at surviving to discount the future. 

Paz’ac looked weary. Her scales had always had the look of old metal. Now they looked like ashes, as if she were slowly dissolving in the rain. They’d laid out carpets and blankets beneath her to make a bed. That wasn’t right for a dragon, particularly not a silver. They needed the cold. Better to let her lay herself out upon metal and chill it with her breath and body. Coins if possible, even old armour. Carpets took the wet, took the cold, but they’d shred beneath her. 

Her wings crumpled on the ground to either side of her. She’d tucked her head beneath one to hide from the rain. Was there no tarp for their beloved commander? No oilskin, nothing?

He hummed low down in his throat, shifting around into the shadows of the tents. Paz’ac stirred, an undulating ripple of motion. It was impossible to tell where the movement had started, where it ended. 

“Drow.” Her voice rasped. 

“Don’t sound so displeased. You’ve sent a lot of soldiers searching for me.”

“You came alone.” Her head snaked out, pupils dilating and nostrils flaring.

“I want to negotiate.” He rolled his stomach muscles as he spoke, throwing his voice over the far corner of the courtyard and circling around in front of the nearest medical tent, marked with green and the scent of the dying. In a way, it was clever to put the hospital tent near her. The cool emanating from her body eased fevers, chilled the dead. And made her hesitant to attack least she crush or freeze her own people. 

Such a terrible thing, to care. 

Muscles bunched under grey scales, her haunches twitching. Blood flushed out into her wings, giving them a tracery of red and purple. 

“Negotiate.” There. Curiosity. A hook. “You will give up the Shade in exchange for what?”

“Perhaps I will. I want safe passage in return.” It was said that dragons could smell a lie. He didn't know if that were myth and doubted Paz'ac knew the truth of it - how could she? She'd had no other dragons to learn from. All that was important was that she might _believe_ she had such an ability.

“Passage out of our lands, so long as you swear never to return.” 

“And you think a dreadful lying drow would adhere to such an agreement?”

“I think you want to stay alive, little creature. I think you like your freedom.” 

He could hear her disdain for that. How little she thought of him, a thief and a criminal, a creature without honour or decency. Good. If she believed that wholeheartedly she would believe he was desperate to save his skin, desperate enough to give up Enteri.

“Oh, I do.” He patted the tiny stomach he'd managed to develop in his time on the surface. "I like it up here. It suits me. And I believe that you would adhere to such an agreement. But I don't believe it of your oathbreaking countrymen."

Paz'ac reared back, her lisp curling. She was missing more teeth now. 

"How dare you!" 

The air was cold enough that his breath was starting to fog. He put a hand over his mouth, all too aware of the possibility of archers. 

“He was paid for it in silver.”

The silence after that was brittle. Paz'ac lowered her head in increments, weaving slowly from left to right. As if she might see his deceptions if only she looked at them the right way. Jarlaxle had seen this before, in drow men given up into slavery or bondage by their own families. Some tried to deny it, at first. Sought out another target. But all of them knew, deep down, the truth. 

“Pardon?”

“Shade. For that spate of king-killings he was paid in silver jewellery.” Partially. “Underpaid, I might add.”

"Liar." 

"You could tell if I were lying, could you not?"

She stalled, claws kneading through the carpets and into the soil. 

“Simple goods, easy to liquidate. It means nothing. Anyone could have hired him.” 

“On the contrary. Old jewellery, a fortune of it." Paz'ac's egg had been 'found' in an ancient dragon's hoard. He'd heard tell of it from the carvaneers and the people of Dunedge, how the Kingdom was build on dragon coin. They thought it explained the greed. "Silver is a rare metal in these parts. So much all at once, had to come from nobility. Nobility within the Kingdom."

“No. No, it means nothing.” She gathered her legs beneath her as if to rise, her talons cutting through the carpets. "As if you could be believed, a drow and an assassin-"

"He talks about it when he's in his cups." He'd never seen Artemis more than slightly flushed. The man didn't like alcohol as more than a taste, didn't like anything that made him lose control of himself. And he'd give Jarlaxle a hiding if he knew he was spreading such exaggerations. But that was how soldiers behaved, drunk and complaining of ill deeds against them. And soldiers were what Paz'ac knew. "Someone had to hire him. Someone paid him in old silver, old enough to have come from a hoard. How many have access to that, and to enough to pay an assassin of kings?" 

The key with any negotiation was to know what one wanted. And in this case, Jarlaxle didn't want this distant king dead, nor himself and Artemis absolved. No, all he wanted was doubt. Doubt led to hesitation. 

Paz’ac was still a long moment. 

Then she roared for the guards. 

Such a sound sent the camp flying into chaos. Jarlaxle crouched low and slashed himself a narrow entrance into the nearest tent. The smell of blood and fear hit him immediately, and he flattened himself between two cots as a healer rushed past. One of the wounded soldiers had begun to cough, a wet and terrible sound. He crawled up the aisle, made for the door and stepped aside as the torches sent shadows flickering outside. Another man burst into the tent, sword drawn. The tall one. Stevan. 

Jarlaxle eased out past him, closer than his shadow. To run was to draw attention. Splashes, footsteps, breathing. 

They had laid down wooden boards in the main walkways. A vain attempt to stop their camp sinking into the mud. Jarlaxle waited for three more fighters to rush past and then moved across and between supply tents. Very thoughtful of them to lay this out in a grid. Two more roads, it seemed like, and then the darkness of the desert. 

Paz’ac’s next cry made the very air around him sharp with frost. 

“Torches! Hounds!”

She had reared up onto her hindquarters, spreading her wings for balance. Orange eyes gleamed like lanterns in the darkness, swinging to and fro. Jarlaxle reached out, feeling his way into the nearest door, and ducked inside as her gaze turned towards him. 

The heat hit him immediately, and the smell of sweaty humans. The shouting of people who’d come too close to death. 

A mess tent. He sidestepped as a platter and a jug of ale went flying, closely followed by two squabbling soldiers. Their companions waded in to pull them apart and he slipped through the gap like a sigh, up onto the bench and over the table, stepping over a sleeping man. A doorway stood open three tables away. He ducked down beneath the next table, crawling between boots and abandoned knapsacks, and up onto the next bench to avoid the grizzled hound chewing on a great white bone. 

He’d gotten halfway along the aisle before it lifted its head and began to growl.

He really didn’t like dogs. 

But he knew a burst of pity for the animal when the nearest soldier kicked it. Enough of a distraction for him to ease away, away and under the edge of the tent, wriggling through the mud and up into a torchlit track and away into the dark. 

Keep moving. That was always the key. Keep moving. 

He had passed beyond the circle of torches when he heard the hoofbeats on the road behind him. 

A voice. 

_"Drow!"_

Stevan. 

And what sounded like many, many hounds.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas retail and a hardcore fever kicked my butt, let me tell you, but thank you all for your patience!
> 
> tw for some unhealthy interactions with alcohol near the end of this chapter

Artemis traveled north, drawing his cloak tight against the rain. 

The invading soldiers were clever enough to have search parties in the outlying areas. Search parties with hounds, who picked up his scent where he could have skirted easily around their human masters. But Si’sial had long been a haunt of his. And being a man of no place, he was a man of every place. During the dry season, the steam beds acted as pathways and stairs for the locals herding their sheep. Now they hid his footsteps and broke the scent a hound might try to follow. 

They tried to ambush him, the dogs driving him up through a narrow gully and two soldiers jumping down onto him from above. Artemis was almost impressed, ducking low so that he could heave one over his back. Drawing a blade from his boot, he jabbed the other one in the arm as she tried to run him through, then in the thigh. The kind of wound that would kill a person, unless tended swiftly. Soldiers grew attached to one another. Only three of them chased him up the ravine. A glance back showed that third one to be dithering, stooping over her friend. He hopped sideways as he came up over the ridge and raced for a set of short, staggered cliffs that led up the hillside. 

This rock was deceptive. It looked as if it were deeply ridged, lined and cracked with convenient footholds for a climber. And so it was for him, small and lightly armoured. Less so for those in heavy mail. Shrieks sounded behind him as rock gave way, fighters falling back on top of their companions. 

Another half-mile fell away before him, before the roar brought him to a halt. The dragon. Nothing else could bellow like outraged thunder. 

Jarlaxle. 

He remembered the drow smiling at him. 

“You go ahead. I’ll catch up.” 

The impulse to go back was so strong he had to lock his muscles to resist it. 

He’d taken advantage of this instinct many times, taking prisoners and hostages to lure his targets in and scoffing at their idiocy. They knew they had enemies and then let themselves fall for simple folk, those who couldn't protect themselves. Or let their loved ones walk around with only a belt-knife, thinking that was enough, perhaps a few amulets. As if those couldn't be cut away and thrown in a river. 

_Who's the idiot now? This is what happens when you let yourself be so weak._

He thought of Jarlaxle. Not as he was here, marveling at raindrops and warm in his arms. As he was in the underdark. The very first time Artemis had seen him, surrounded by dangerous men who looked to him before acting. Everything about him glittering like jagged glass. 

_He wouldn’t have gone into that camp if he couldn't get back out. He knows what he’s doing._ That was part of why he allowed himself to be drawn in, after all. 

He vented his frustration by scratching messages into the roadside milestones. The drow runes for idiot, knowing that no one else could understand it. It almost drew a smile to his face, to think of Jarlaxle coming across it and huffing. 

The sunrise was a warm and lovely thing, a strip of pink and red between the low grey clouds and the dark horizon. The first in some time that wasn’t accompanied by Jarlaxle’s delight. He’d taken to thrilling at them in greeting, the low strange drow-song that came right from the chest, at least until Artemis woke up and elbowed him for giving away their location. 

The rain had faded to a soft haze of drizzle, enough now that he could see a good distance ahead of him. Si’sial was rich enough to have something of a road system, and one of those stretched through the rolling landscape from Dunedge to Snug. Originally a solid road created from flat slabs of rock, age and a lack of maintenance had left them gradually crumbling and sliding apart. Some of them wobbled underfoot, threatening to splash dirty puddles into his shoes. 

Taking a main road anywhere was always a risk. Roads were watched, by guards and highwaymen alike. He had often lain in wait for targets by the roadside. A boring proposition at best, only brightened when the local bandits took umbrage to his presence. But the quicker he was away, the better. Paz’ac had over extended herself to get to Dunedge. She couldn’t come much further without putting her army at risk.

Gnarled trees sheltered the road from the worst of the rain, their branches intertwining above his head. Planted on the order of some ancient king, they remained barren and bare most of the year, only to accelerate through leaves and flowers and fruit once the rain came. Local tradition held the fruit in common usage, so that lost travelers might not starve. Less an act of benevolence, he suspected, and more an act of quarantine against the wild dogs that roamed the area, feeding on the dead and spreading plague. 

He met the group of Si’sialan soldiers halfway into the morning. They wore the sun emblazoned on their chestplates, sensible leather armour and rode fast black mares. Their god-king wouldn’t take kindly to such invasion. Though the presence of the dragon would throw the odds against them. Perhaps they would all kill each other and leave him to move on in peace. He flattened himself behind the roadside trees and held his breath as the horses thundered by. And as he did so, he noticed the soil under his shoes felt strangely solid, strangely soft, and looked down to see the strangest of all colours. Green.

Most of the year, this was a barren landscape of pale rock and dust. Even the sky looked bleached, as if the sun gradually baked everything to whiteness. But when the rains came half the desert was transformed. Under the sandy soil lay a carpet of seeds, virtually dead except for a few days at the end of Rainpeace. 

The grass was perfectly soft to the touch, and he started at the scent that rose up. So fresh, so light. And because the rains came down from the northeast and rolled across the desert, the further he traveled into it the longer the rain-meadows had had to flourish. The grass came up to his knees, then up to his waist. It swayed in the wind like waves on the ocean and the flowers shifted as he trailed his fingers over them. Every colour imaginable, a virtual starry sky of yellow and white and red and blue. The roots of the purple one could poison a man, given in tea over the course of a year. 

The flowers had surely always had a scent but this was the first time he had stopped to compare one to another out of curiosity. Why did some flower in clusters, and others alone? Why were they different colours? He didn’t know, and it wasn’t the type of question that had ever occurred to him. Their qualities as foodstuff or toxins was all that mattered. 

Jarlaxle would like this place, the greenery, the blossoms, the butterflies and bees that now swarmed through this rare abundance. He wanted to see that. Wanted to watch him take his gloves off to touch the flowers, linger over the colours, try to sniff them and sneeze when he got pollen up his nose. He would like the trees that lined the road, shedding white blossoms in the wind. How…strange. To enjoy the enjoyment of another. 

And despite that, he was not crippled by it. He hadn’t descended into despair or loneliness, as a part of him had feared. He noticed the absence and remained capable as ever. The knowledge eased a concern he had barely allowed himself to acknowledge, that allowing Jarlaxle any closer might pull him all to shreds. That he might not be strong enough to endure long-term companionship. 

He plucked the flower carefully and folded it into a scrap of bandage, pressing it flat in an inner pocket of his cloak. 

Someone was watching him. Curling his hands, he eased the longer, sharp blades from his bracers free. This had been Askin’s gangland, but bandit groups shifted territory much more frequently that the countries they lived in. It could be Peska’s now, or Judra’s. All groups of feverishly desperate thugs, thieves and slavers. None of them had taken kindly to him trying to work independently in their patch, particularly as he wouldn’t pay a cut to the local crimelord and took on any enforcers they sent after him as practice.

There was a dead-end gully just over that hill. If he could get them running, and he would, he could chase them into it-

 _You're dressed for travel, moving alone and quickly towards the north._ That voice sounded like Jarlaxle. _They won’t want to start trouble with you, not unless you've crossed one personally. It's a loss of face, and men. And besides, they don’t know who you’re allied with now._

All of that was sensible. But he had not found highwaymen were renowned for their sense, and so kept his weapons out as he splashed through a stream that had risen up to cover the road. Whoever it was, they didn’t follow him as he faded out of view through the hills.

And then suddenly, there was the little town of Snug.

It had grown since he had seen it last, for there was now a smithy and a few beehive-shaped homes clustered around it. Chickens clucked and scattered their way through the common grounds, taking full advantage of the fresh grass and the bounty of insects that came with it. During Rainfest, the sunken sheep path that ran alongside the inn flodded and farms from the mountains took advantage to bring their wares downriver. It wasn’t quite the Dunedge market, largely based around food and livestock, but it was certainly more activity than he had hoped for. 

He went to the inn. The Snug was a rare thing, a crossroads inn that was clean and the origin of the villages name. The owner eyed him suspiciously, plainly sure that he was some kind of bandit thug. She wasn’t wrong. But she offered him a little corner room up in the attic, just large enough for a narrow bed and a hook to hang his cloak on. He poked the mattress suspiciously and decided on the floor instead, laying out on his back and folding his hands over his stomach. It was hard to sleep in a bed after so long on the road. The only reason it had worked in Dunedge was Jarlaxle.

He closed his eyes experimentally. This felt…not safe, exactly. No where was safe, only safer. But safe enough to sleep. 

Just a few hours. Just long enough that his hands weren’t so clumsy, that his thoughts weren’t so slow. Jarlaxle would either catch up to him or he wouldn’t. 

He had to sit to take his dinner. Si'sialans were peculiar about eating in public, considering it unclean. He was halfway through virtually inhaling a bowl of soup when his skin prickled. Of all things, and despite his precautions in taking the most shadowy and well hidden table n the inn, someone was approaching him. A dark blue tiefling bearing the tassle-hemmed tunic of a bard, a winning smile and two glasses of wine. Completely devoid of edge or mischief. That utter harmlessness was the only thing that stopped him from drawing a knife when the man slid into the bench beside him. 

“What’s a fellow like you doing in a place like this?”

Artemis glared. 

“Ah, I see you are the quiet sort.”

Stabbing him would get him thrown out, and he had already paid for the meal. Inspiration struck. 

"I'm waiting on someone. Go flirt elsewhere." 

"Would they hold a little friendly conversation against you? I'm sure they aren't the jealous sort." 

Wait a second. He flicked one of the tassels, only for his hand to slide through. 

“Jarlaxle?”

The tiefling grinned. And now it was all teeth and delight. 

“You were very insistent I wear a disguise, abbil.”

“That is not a disguise.” He scowled. "What are you doing? I might have jabbed you." 

"Not when you had a meal to finish." Jarlaxle laughed as he glared. "Serves you right for insulting me all the way from Dunedge to Snug." 

It was strange to see him with hair. Of all the drow he had ever seen, Jarlaxle was the only bald one. Many of the Bregan D’aerthe shaved the sides of their heads in mimicry. Hair and the fashion in which it was worn signaled family and alignment, as much as a tabard or a flag. Jarlaxle was very clear in showing he had no alliance with anyone. 

_Including me._

"What did you do?"

Jarlaxle leaned back and closed his eyes. There was a stiffness in the movement most unlike him. 

“I put doubt in her mind.” Artemis saw flecks of blood on his arms, around his nails. The illusion was beginning to fray away, as if it had been in place for hours. It said much that Jarlaxle hadn’t had time or energy to clean them. Or perhaps he had decided not to, displaying them as a show of vulnerability. Of trust? A manipulation. Everything was with the drow. 

“You could have put a sword in her brain instead.”

“Perhaps.” The drow seemed weary. "Abbil, I had to tell a lie about you. I said you drink a lot."

He hitched his shoulders up a little as he spoke. Of everything Artemis had been expecting, that hadn't been on the list.

"I've had worse things said about me. But why was that-"

"To fool her. I said you grumble about being paid in silver jewellery when you are drunk. For the king job."

He had mentioned that exactly once in passing. 

A good reminder that Jarlaxle listened to everything. He bristled, for that was his business and no one else's. And now this mad elf went blathering it about to the general of a small army?

"Why was that relevant at all?"

"I think that it came from her dam's hoard, that her egg was taken when her family was slain." Jarlaxle shifted. He was watching him sidelong, as if he expected Artemis to lunge at him. "If she begins to wonder, to hesitate, then it will be good for us- for you-"

He fumbled over his words and went uncharacteristically quiet, examining the cutlery.

 _You aren't quite sure how to do this, either._ He had met Jarlaxle in a position of power in the Underdark, having carved out a place for himself. But nonetheless Jarlaxle existed in a world where everyone wanted him in some way. To own him, to control him. He was no more familiar with simple partnership than Artemis was. And he'd surely had to engage in dangerous alliances, relationships where the other party held power over him. 

Artemis knew he would be hard pressed to find another partner his equal. He hadn't quite considered that the same was true for Jarlaxle. 

"That was clever," he tried. The words were awkward. This was a skill he had never sharpened. "To mention the silver."

Jarlaxle blinked at him and Artemis looked away. Even with the disguise the expression was too open for him to bear. He made eye contact with the barwoman and gestured for another plate instead. Jarlaxle looked as if he might say something earnest for a moment. Then common sense took over. 

"You'll be pleased to know that I found two horses in the desert."

"Found."

"Wandering in full tack." 

"How fortunate." 

It was more enjoyable to have him back than he cared to admit. Like a warm meal after a long hunger. 

Jarlaxle stirred as the food arrived, having half-dozed away. 

“Abbil. So romantic.”

“I have poisoned exactly one tomato.”

“Ah, and so your evenings entertainment is watching me search for it?”

“Exactly.” 

Jarlaxle hummed and waved the maid back, asking for more wine. 

“Are you intending to drink all of that?” Artemis drank when he needed to pass himself as ordinary, but it wasn’t something he enjoyed. The clumsy hands or the lack of inhibitions. It made him stupid. 

“Absolutely. And afterwards I might have two more.”

That was…not like him. For all that he seemed to frolic and cavort, he had never once seen Jarlaxle in his cups.

“We should move on.”

“I am tired, abbil.”

“I’ll drag you, then.” 

Jarlaxle managed to summon enough energy to make a joke of that, sulking theatrically. 

“You could at least offer to carry me.” 

“You’re too heavy.”

Jarlaxle preened. 

“The food here suits me very well.” He looked up at him from under his lashes. “Particularly when it’s cooked for me by someone handsome.” 

Artemis scowled.

“Whoever he is, have him make some for me as well.”

Jarlaxle snickered. 

“Mighty as my charms are, I haven’t quite had the time to pick up another lover.”

“You were out of my sight for a day, that's time enough. And two hours back in Dunedge.”

“Ah, abbil, such flattery.” Jarlaxle finished his wine in a quick gulp, shuddering. “Let us away.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more graphic descriptions of violence about 2/3rds of the way through.

Artemis, as usual, immediately wanted to move on. Jarlaxle found a stool in the stable and folded himself onto it as Enteri went fuss over the horses. They were fine creatures to his eye, inky black with short cropped manes. One of them immediately stretched her head out to sniff at Artemis. 

"Wandering in the desert?" Artemis looked at him sidelong, the edges of his eyes crinkled just so. His version of a smile. Jarlaxle felt himself warm in response and knew that was trouble, knew that meant he liked Enteri more than he ought. 

"I'm lucky like that," he answered guilelessly. It wasn't really a lie. Even if they had been chasing him. 

It turned out that a wire laid at throat height took humans off their mounts very effectively. And that the hounds would turn on the horses in an effort to get at a drow. And that the horses in turn would bolt to escape their fangs and barking. With a little assistance from his strongest stink powder and the rains eager to swallow up his footprints, he'd managed to make good headway on the soldiers and ridden all through the night, only stopping to hide from an oncoming group of local fighters. Enough, he hoped, to drive Paz'ac's warriors back across the border. 

As for the dragon herself...

Sighing, Jarlaxle leaned his head back against the stable wall and closed his eyes. His illusion was frying around the edges, peeling off him like a second cloak. This one was old, cheap. He’d only put it on at the last milestone, the one where Artemis had tried to call him a ‘big idiot’ but, drow language having its own strange laws, accidentally called him ‘idiot king’.

Or idiot queen, more accurately. Drow didn’t have a word for king. Yet.

He’d abandoned his various attempts at human attire for the road, opting for the comfort of his short vest and bare stomach. His spy had been up here some years now, living as a human man in the northern mountains, feeding them a steady trickle of information on the strange politics and powerplays of the human world. Van'ai had been startled when Jarlaxle contacted him through a sending stone, but eager for the excuse to leave the tiny village. 

“They’ve started to notice I don’t age. And I’ll be happy to never eat mutton again.” 

Jarlaxle had been glad to see another drow, and that was a bizarre experience in and of itself. Much as he strove to stand out in Menzobarrenzan, there was a difference between that and the keen physical distinction he felt on the surface. Van’ai seemed to feel much the same, leaning into him eagerly as he blurted out an extremely hasty report. They’d been lovers for a time in the underdark. It was a strange pleasure to revisit such memories in such a different time and a different place, sheltered beneath the roadside trees. 

But time waited on no drow and Jarlaxle had many webs a spinning. He needed Van’ai to be thirty miles south-west in the next few days. A tricky journey through unfamiliar and unfriendly terrain. Van’ai curled into him as Jarlaxle sketched out a quick magical map, the ink settling onto the page to give a sense of altitude as well as distance. 

“Here, Dunedge is overrun, but you can skirt around. The land is low-lying, swampy and muddy, but this was the track we took through it.”

“We,” Van’ai murmured. Jarlaxle had granted him just the edge of a smile. 

“We. The stronghold with the cannon was just here. Our draconic friend demolished it rightly, but there might be something of interest left.”

Van’ai was one of the stealthiest drow he had ever come across. He had survived a most thorough purging of his household by hiding in the walls, crawling across the top of bookcases, moving around the fighters that searched each room and ducking behind the guards. It was quite incredible, how little a presence he had. Jarlaxle had risked the wrath of the invading matron to fold Van’ai into the Bregan D’aerthe, and never once found that investment lacking. 

“And here?”

“A dead-magic zone, and beyond that you’ll find the caves. And our esteemed colleagues, assuming they haven’t gotten themselves lost or eaten by some monster. Or swallowed in a sandstorm.” 

Van’ai had sighed and Jarlaxle had tapped his nose. 

“Don’t fret so. Here!” A quick sleight of hand and he produced a scroll of sending from behind Van’ai’s ear. “And above all, be cautious. It was hard enough to get ourselves up here. Let us not lose what little foothold we have.”

“Your…guide. He went this way two hours ago. Very alert for a ib- rivkael.” He caught himself at the last moment, using the neutral word for human rather than the viciously derogatory one. 

“An uncommonly interesting man.” Jarlaxle used the inclusive word, the one that referred to Artemis as if he were part of the family, such as the Bregan D’aerthe went. “Here. Food for the road, and take this broach, it will make you fresh clean water-”

After weighing Van’ai down with three more trinkets, and dire instructions not to dare lose any of them, Jarlaxle sent him onward. His surface team was composed of adaptable drow, clever and cosmopolitan. He had sent them towards the same caves Artemis had used to escape the sandstorm. The desert was a raw place to survive, but Artemis had very kindly shown him some perfectly habitable tunnels. And Jarlaxle knew that where there was a cave, there was likely a whole system of them. Enough for a few drow to be quite comfortable. 

The political situation left much to be desired, but it was naught compared to the chaos of Menzobarrenzan. And besides that, instability meant opportunity. 

Artemis plucked a strand of grass and tickled his nose with it. Jarlaxle swatted him with his hat. 

“There are better places to sleep.”

“Merely resting my eyes, abbil. Although, I am curious as to your plan of escape.”

“How are you with heights?”

Jarlaxle let his mouth curl a little. His atlas showed mountains to the north, a line of jagged peaks dividing the desert from the tundra. 

“Ah, I’ve had to climb my way into and out of many underdark spires.” One would think they’d learn, after the first one failed to hold him. But no, each captor was convinced they were the exception. That their walls were too steep, the drop too far, that he was helpless when stripped of his tools. 

The rain had eased away almost entirely now, leaving rolling hills of green grass and flowers in shapes and colours he had no name for, sprinkled over the hills like jewels on a gown. He tried to fix the colours in his mind, that he might have such a cape commissioned for himself. Velvet with floral embroidery to give the whole scene a sense of depth. Colourful butterflies wove their way from blossom to blossom. One of them landed briefly on the rim of his hat, red and orange wings flexing. 

“Why, aren’t you such a marvel.” So beautifully, perfectly made, only to live and die in the space of a week. “Such a pity.”

“You’re making too much noise.” Artemis’s hands twitched as he spoke. He studied the meadow to either side of them, keeping one hand on the reins and the other on his sword. Jarlaxle huffed at him but relented. His horse seemed happy to keep walking, her ears perked forwards. Carefully, he lay down against her back, resting his head on her hindquarters and watching the interwoven branches roll past overhead. As the day passed they grew thicker and thicker, almost entirely swallowing up the sunlight. He turned his head to study the trees to either side of the road, eyes adjusting to the gloom. Was this a forest? 

“Just a thicket,” Artemis answered with a flick of his hand. He didn’t seem to like this new scenery at all, reaching forwards to hold the reins so that the metal parts didn't jingle. “Let us be through it swiftly. And quietly.”

About an hour into their journey Artemis stiffened, then slipped off the mare in dead silence and vanished into the tree's. Jarlaxle sat up, watching the undergrowth ripple. He hadn’t considered how it might block noise as well as vision. 

“Ah, he goes to face the future alone. I always thought it would end this way,” Jarlaxle said aloud. “Goodbye, and good luck.” 

His horse snorted. For lack of something else to do he kept moving. The horses weren’t traveling so quickly that Artemis would lose sight of them, if he decided to come back at all. 

_He isn't gone. He hasn't brought his pack._ But even the thought of Artemis leaving made him ache in a worrying fashion. _I like him a little too much._

Only the dull thud of impact gave Jarlaxle warning. Two branches snapped somewhere in the thicket. Then silence. 

He urged the mare off the road and dismounted, stepping into the deep green. It took him only a few moments to locate a trail of flattened grass and broken branches. The killing was ordinary enough. A man in drab linens and leather armour worn almost down to the grain. A footpad or a spy, no doubt. Someone Artemis knew. It looked as if Enteri had come upon him from the grass, for his throat was cut deeply and his sword still in its sheath. 

The killing was ordinary enough as Enteri’s methods went. The mutilation was not. Already flies buzzed around two red and empty eyesockets. Jarlaxle paused. Was there a fourth person out here?

His ears twitched as the faintest sound made its way through the trees. A muffled croak. 

The second man seemed to have put up a better fight, his stomach a bloody mess and his hands cut to ribbons. Jarlaxle paused long enough to take his purse and beltknife. 

Artemis had circled back around, as was his way, and stood on the far side of the horses. The set to his shoulders that made Jarlaxle keep his distance. He’d seen drow look like that before, usually before or after some extreme brutality. 

“Abbil.”

Artemis closed his eyes briefly and seemed to give himself a little shake. 

“Jarx, you have something to clean blood off clothes.” 

“Of course, Abbil.” He made a show of patting down his pockets so as to hide his glee at the nickname. Artemis clearly wasn’t in the frame of mind to appreciate his delight. Indeed, he might not quite realise what he had said. “Leave one for me next time, eh? I could do with the practice.”

“No. They shouldn’t see you.” Artemis muttered something very quick after that in desert-cant, passing the wand up and down his sleeves. Jarlaxle thought of the empty eye sockets and grimaced. He’d never asked Artemis of his past. He didn’t need to. Freedom didn’t come without suffering. 

“Would you rather travel by night, abbil?” 

Artemis paused, studying the trees. 

“Better to go. Besides, that first one owed me money and I intend to collect.” 

“He’ll hardly pay you back now,” Jarlaxle observed. Those boots wouldn’t even sell for much. Artemis took a folded paper from his pocket and shook it open. Jarlaxle laughed at the sight of a reward poster, delighted. 

“Clever abbil.” 

And that seemed to close him off again, shutters drawing behind his eyes as he turned away to climb back up onto the horse. He was quiet for a good hour after not. Not the usual quiet, watchful and fluid. A hard kind of silence, the kind with sharp pieces to it. And he was extra cautious as they made their camp, which for a man of his nature was quite the sight to see. 

Jarlaxle ached after a day in the saddle, and Enteri’s silence and oddness was beginning to grate on him. Reaching into his hat, he took out a small carved figurine of a tent and set it on the ground. Artemis side-stepped as it swelled in size and promptly circled around it with his tripwires, despite its inbuilt magical wards and invisibility. Much as Jarlaxle wanted to sigh at him, he resisted. Let Enteri to his rituals, if it would settle him. Only when each trap had been checked three times and each tripwire tested for perfect tension did he duck into the tent.

“They don't come this far east,” he said as if continuing a conversation. “Too close to Crucmor town. The war must had driven them out of their usual hunting grounds.”

Jarlaxle was careful not to react, tugging off his boots. 

“Old companions of yours?” 

Artemis very rarely laughed. When he did it was a somewhat ugly sound, like a branch breaking underfoot. Or a bone. 

“It was a poor time for everyone involved.” He frowned briefly, grey eyes stormy. "I was young, I miscalculated how much poison was needed for a group. Some of them survived." 

A rare show of trust, for Artemis to admit such a mistake. Jarlaxle made a sympathetic sound as he eased himself out of his vest, and pretended not to notice Enteri's eyes grazing over his arms. 

"Consider. This time, you have a weapon they do not know of." He held his arms out, knowing he made a fine sight, and smiled. "Me." 

Artemis closed his eyes briefly. But the tightness in his jaw eased and he almost smiled. 

"Quite. You'll talk them all to death." 

"I don't know if that would work, abbil. You're still alive, mm?"

"Just about." When he opened his eyes again they were thoughtful. “I want to try something.”

That from a different lover might have led to an interesting evening involving some kind of blindfold or exotic herbs. Artemis instead shifted to lie out alongside him, closing his eyes in a deliberate fashion. Mastering all those memories, all that old fear. Jarlaxle gave him a long moment of quiet. Long enough that Artemis only grumbled at him when he reached out to tug on the laces of his shirt. Grumbled, but did not pull away. Jarlaxle reached through to rest his fingertips against his chest. So warm. 

“So. What did you think of the tiefling?”

“This again.” Artemis shifted onto his side and rested his chin on his palm. Grey eyes shifted from Jarlaxle's hand to his face. “Hardly a knife now, was he. Maybe a harp.”

“Harps have their uses.” 

“Not for me.” Artemis scooted forwards, closing the space between them, and reached for Jarlaxle’s eyepatch. He caught his wrist automatically, but softened his grip and let Artemis reach forwards again. His fingers were gentle as he eased it back off his face and Jarlaxle felt a sudden hitch in his chest at the strange intimacy of it. For once, he was the one to look away. 

_This is becoming dangerous._

_Everything I do is dangerous. Besides, who else would appreciate him as I do?_ And after that, a whisper, _who else would have me any longer than they needed me?_

Practicality rose to battle sentiment.

 _He needs me yet. And he doesn't want anyone else._ Although perhaps a flirty cheerful tiefling wasn't the best thing to tease him with. Much as Artemis listened to him sing, he watched Jarlaxle's hands all the closer.

“You lost your earring.” Artemis traced over the notch in his ear. Strange, how fingers so callused could be so careful. Jarlaxle eased out a breath, reeling back some sense of control. “You walk into a enemy camp and you come out only missing an earring. I don’t think master tiefling could manage that.”

“Oh, I'm sure he's very resourceful.”

“What is it you think a stranger could offer me?”

“Anything you want.” 

“Bah.” Artemis glided a hand under his chin and drew him into a kiss. Jarlaxle hummed, melting into it. “I am interested in you.”

His heart fluttered. 

"I find you tolerable." He grinned as Artemis bristled and tried to flick his nose, leading to a brief and furious bout of wrestling. Which in turn led to Artemis clutching a blackened eye and Jarlaxle nursing an aching jaw. 

“Truce?” 

Artemis made a show of considering it and then climbed over him so that Jarlaxle was closer to the mouth of the tent. 

"Lout."

The long chase and the ache of horseback riding finally caught up with them and they fell into sleep almost simultaneously. 

Jarlaxle awoke only once. Artemis was sitting up, turning one of his boot daggers over and over in his hands. You are planning something, Jarlaxle thought, and closed his eyes again so that Enteri would not notice him.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *I'm on top of things again, she says. (cries in retail, which has been a Goddamn Trip recently to the extent that I am searching for a new job). Thank you all for your patience. Warnings on the next chapter for mild dissociation and Drizzt in general.*

At first there was a great hue and cry as her camp burst asunder in search of the drow. Torches snatched from their holdings, soldiers slipping and sliding in the mud. Squealing horses and barking dogs. All of it rushing away from her, off in search of one dark elf that had already evaded her sight. Sinking back to her haunches, Paz'ac curled her tail up in a vain attempt to stop it from sinking into the dirt. The mud had worked its way into the skin around her talons. It ached. Oh, she ached.

The buckles on her armour chafed, rubbing against bone and tarnishing scale. Weighing her down. Filling up her skull with the scent of rust, so much like the scent of blood. 

Twisting her head, she started to chew through the straps that held them in place. Sweet relief rolled through her as her heavy chestplate fell away. Tucking her head in against her chest, she inhaled properly for the first time in hours. Then she set about shucking the rest, letting it fall into the muck. In a way, the drow and the ruckus he caused was a blessing. A distraction. By the time anyone noticed her she had made up her mind. Her thoughts were clear and cool and steady, strangely peaceful.

“Commander?” 

“I have failed you all. I am discharging myself from service.” Now. Now she could go and not worry about the army trailing behind her. Not worry about leading them into death and danger. 

Stevan panicked. 

“Commander!”

“Bring the soldiers home. Forget this…display of mine. Fall back, strengthen our positions in Crosslane and the Si’sial border.” She rolled her wings in their sockets and launched herself upwards. For a moment she hung in mid air, her flight sacs expanding, her wings aching. She thought she would fall, crush the tents of the camp. But then she caught the winds properly and rose. The winds were easy, lifting her up beyond pain. Even the rain was kind, having softened to a gentle haze.

She turned herself towards the mountains. Her rangers had said the fastest way to escape the desert was via a series of narrow passes over the peaks. She flew low and swift, following the road.

After an hour, she saw the Si’sialians. A whole squad of them on horseback, bearing down on her soldiers. A hunting horn rang out as they spotted her and the riders scattered, groups of two or three racing away from one another so that she couldn’t target them all in a single pass. Ice crawled up her throat, crackled on her tongue. 

She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t leave more death in her wake. So much already, and none of it was enough to convince the humans to lay down their arms and surrender. Why? Why did they fight? She swept overhead with a bellow of frustration. 

They would ride on now and attack her fighters. 

No matter what she did, death followed. 

The scent of ash on the wind served only to reinforce such grim thoughts. As she came over the horizon she was greeted with a huge plume of smoke. Half the savannah seemed to be aflame. Paz’ac flinched at the sight of the flames and blasted them with frost as she passed overhead. Hopefully that would limit their advance. She twisted her wings to catch the warm updrafts, carrying her along over the plains. The northern mountains loomed into view along the horizon, a smokey blue. So fast, so fast she was without armour and men to weigh her down. 

A town at the base of the mountains panicked upon seeing her. Alarm bells rang out harshly, the sound ringing in her ears and rattling her teeth. Tilting her wings she caught the wind traveling along the flanks of the mountain and rose, pointing herself towards the snowline. There, that was where she needed to be. She needed the cold, needed the ice. 

She didn’t land so much as slowly slide along through the snow, sinking and eventually coming to a halt on her side in a great snowbank. Her passage left a great disturbed cloud of ice crystals in its wake, slowly falling to settle on her hide. The silence afterwards was heavy as any armour, heavy as a siege wall pressing down upon her. 

Peaceful. Finally, finally peaceful. 

She dropped away into the empty space between thoughts, between heartbeats. The world rolled on around her, the wind whispering over the mountainside in flurries of snow and ice. Variations of the layers of cloud rolled overhead, all of them marching towards the desert only to be disintegrated by its heat. Her lungs filled and emptied, her heart beat slowly in her ears. Time stretched wide around her and she thought of nothing, knew nothing.

“Hallo!”

Her eyes opened quite of their own accord. The world blurred together in front of her, white on grey on white. And a figure crouched just in front of her snout, tightly bundled up in a fur-lined green cloak. Large purple eyes peered at her out of an inky dark face, framed by white hair. A round face cracked in a broad smile. 

“Oh good, you're alive!” He had a strange voice, an accent like that of a northerner. The edges of his cloak were lined with geometric dwarven embroidery. She tilted her head in the snow to fix an eye on him. "That was quite the crashlanding, I saw it from the next slope over!"

A drow. Her lip curled in a snarl. That was usually enough to send mortals running. This one rocked back on his heels, tilted his head to study her teeth. 

"Oh, a double row of incisors. Fascinating. Would you mind if I were to sketch your fangs?"

“Are you one of his?” Jarlaxle had spoken of men and mercenaries. Surely this was some thug of his. But he seemed very scholarly for a thug, despite the two sword hilts poking out from under his cloak. His eyes were purple as desert flowers, and opened wide with curiosity as she spoke. 

“I’m not beholden to anyone.” The drow paused. “Except my wife, of course. Now, it looks like your foot is caught under you. I’m going to dig it out, okay?” 

A coherent answer was quite beyond her. But she shifted so that her wing fell open, half-shielding him from the wind. 

“Oh, so you _are_ a dragon! I thought you might be a regional polymorph of an ice drake. I must write to Sir Reginaud down in Helio, quite the scholar, but entirely wrong when it comes to his understanding of anatomy-” 

She closed her eyes again, surrounded by the soft silence of falling snow. When she roused out of the darkness an endless age later, the drow was curled up inside a little tent next to her head. He had patched up the edges of her wings and set her scales in place with a kind of hard-drying clay, and packed all her open wounds with a mixture of snow and some vile-scented herbal poultice. She sniffed the wad of bandage on her knuckles and gagged. The drow snickered at her, huddled beneath six layers of wool. Only his eyes and a single hand were visible, both engaged in drawing a detailed picture of the socket where her wing joined her back. 

"A grim scent, I know, but quite effective." 

The cold seemed to be healing her. She felt stronger already, enough to actually lift her head from the ground. 

“What are you doing here, little drow?”

“Sketching.”

She sighed at him and was rewarded with a laugh. 

“More precisely, I was making a map of the mountain passes.”

“Why?”

"A lot of folks getting lost up here, trying to escape the warfront. I’ve spent the last three weeks guiding people across.” He flipped to the back of the journal, hand spreading over a chicken-scratch sketch of the peaks. “I hope to help more of them this way. I can’t be in all places, but a dozen maps can.”

Running away from the war. The conflict she had tried to stop, and seemed to have made all the worse. 

“I think I have made a mistake.”

Exhaustion rolled over her like a storm. The drow started to say something, his voices a low buzz. She could make no sense of them. Later she awoke to find him building a windbreak of rock and compact snow around her head. A small fire crackled in front of her, with what looked like a snow-hare roasting over the flames. 

“Why are you helping me?”

“Assisting those in need is considered a moral act.” He tucked a wisp of white hair under his hood. “Although, there are some schools of thought that maintain that compassion is the ultimate cruelty, as it prevents a person learning to help themselves.”

Paz’ac rumbled. 

“A view beloved by certain scholars of the nobility, from what I remember. Dame Croiphai of Waterdeep springs to mind.” 

The drow perked up.

“You've read _The Princess_?”

“I have. A waste of paper.” 

He gasped in delight and hopped over the windbreak, knocking a clump of snow into the fire in his enthusiasm, and immediately plopped down tailor style before her. 

“I thought so, it rather struck me as barbarism disguised by dense prose. I took some notes on the particularly egreious sections-” he began to flip furiously through that over-stuffed journal. Her mind rolled itself back to the cool arched ceilings of her pavilion in the palace, remembering the long hall and all its books. Hours spent in study as the fountains in the garden gurgled and the sun slid over blue and white tiles. it had been some time since she'd had the opportunity to read anything. 

Those reports of the Shade's initial attack had never arrived, come to think of it. 

Troubling. 

“Are you familiar with Sir Xere’s Natural History?” She asked, mostly to take her mind off the building inconsistencies of her life. 

“Only the first volume I’m afraid and an old edition at that. He thinks we were all fish once on account of similarity in skeletons?” The drow sounded somewhat doubtful. “That would run contrary to a lot of religious convention. Then again, much of that is deception entirely.” 

Their conversation continued as such over the next few days. The drow was well-read, if in a self-directed and largely haphazard fashion, and had enough acdemic understanding to critically assess everything he'd ever come across without ever coming to a solid conclusion on any of it. A strange contrast with his worn leathers and frizzy hair. He noted his every errant thought in that battered notebook, in between sketches of local wildlife and brew-recipes he was collecting for his wife. 

"You like beer?"

"Not really, but Catti does." He sighed, wistful. "I am a little homesick, Paz'ac." 

“Where are you from, little ranger?”

“Icewind Dale.” His face closed off immediately. Whoever he was, he couldn’t lie to save his life. She considered what she knew of the drow homecity and decided to let him have his secrets. 

“You are far from home, indeed.” 

“Oh, I always find my way.” He held out a skewer of roasted partridges to her. Where he was finding them in this steady snow she had no idea. But he seemed entirely at ease, almost comfortable as he melted snow in a pot over the fire and dabbed hazelnut oil on his lips and eyelids to stop them freezing together. 

The cold was healing her. But with the newfound vigour all her uncertainties came crashing back. She crunched her way through the birds and sighed as they burned their way down to her stomach. 

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” 

“You talk of the war?”

“I do.” For the first time in days she shifted, drawing her legs under her and curling her tail up so that the tip reached her nose. “I…all my books and reading and learning led me to think it would be enough. That they would lay down their arms before me rather than risk the destruction of fighting a dragon.”

The drow used a small stick to poke the fire and sat back, wrapping his arms around his knees as he waited for her to continue. 

“It worked for a while. And some of them were happy to see me, welcomed us as liberators from vicious kings. But now they won’t stop. It doesn’t matter what I do, what I say. They all keep fighting. All keep dying.”

The drow was quiet for a long time. 

“It is easy to misstep when you don’t know so much of the world.”

“But I do. I spent all my life studying, learning of history and politics.”

The drow smiled, but it was a sorrowful expression.

“How do you know what you know? Who wrote your books and stocked that library?”

That made her pause. The drow started to pluck another partridge, sneezing as the feathers floated around his head. 

“It can all seem so simple. The world is the way it is, and all you have to do is try and find a place in it.” He poked the fire again. “Then you start to think about things. And once you start to think, you can’t stop.” 

“The king was murdered. He raised me as if I were his child. The surrounding territories began to invade. I had stop it.” She couldn’t bear the thought. She hadn’t been able to bear the thought of it in the palace, how she dozed on marble floors surrounded by great works of literature while the people of the kingdom died in the dust. 

“You can’t.” His voice was flat. “You can try, and maybe it will work. But so often, the problems are larger than one person- or one dragon- can fix.” 

He clutched his mapbook close as he spoke and Paz’ac saw the glazed expression she associated with soldiers who had seen too much time on the frontlines.

“How can you possibly know?”

“I am very good at killing.” He said it lightly, too lightly. “When we were attacking other houses, they would send me to fight. Every time, I tried to convince the other house to stand down. That we would adopt them if they did, how it would lessen casualties. How it was easier for everyone this way.”

“Did it ever work?”

“No.” 

“They didn’t want to be free?”

“Hardly free, just a different kind of shackle. Besides, perhaps they had the right of it. They knew life under a different house would be as bad, or worse. And even here...I've killed a lot of people. Bandits driven to terrible things by desperation. Creatures made evil by cruel masters. Good people consumed by bad circumstances.”

“How does one live with that?”

“Help where you can. Even if it hurts.” He drew in tighter on himself as he spoke, eyes going distant. “You don’t have to be a good creature. Only do good things. That can fulfill the moral obligations of sapience, even if the core of you is evil.”

“You believe that?”

“I have to. It has led to many scars.” He inhaled and then offered her a small, fragile smile, surprising as a flower in snow. “But also many friends.” 

What a strange way to live. But she thought of her fighters trapped in the floodplains, how her heart ached at the sight of them. Yes, it was hard to turn away. 

_I did not come here for philosophy. I came for information._

“You have been in these mountains, making your maps. Tell me. Have you found any old caves, the kind where a dragon might have lived some centuries ago?”

And now she saw why this one had not thrived in the underdark. His face was too open, his eyes too honest. For she saw immediately in his face a horror, and knew a grim cold darkness in her heart. 

“I have.”

“Are they empty.”

“Um.” 

“Please.” 

“This might not bring you peace, my friend. But I won’t keep you from it.” 

He directed her further up the mountain. It was a tricky flight, and she finally ended up landing on the icy slopes and climbing upwards. Her serrated claws gripped the ice with ease, and quite instinctively she found herself using the great hooked talons on the tips of her wings to haul herself along the steeper parts. The drow shouting something in delight from her back. She twisted her head to see him furiously trying to sketch her movements. 

“This is exactly the kind of thing Dame Leoniaia theorized-”

Huffing in amusement, she crawl-flapped up the last part of the slope and almost fell into the cave. A truly gigantic cave, bigger than even the palce. Paz’ac lifted her head, opened her wings as far as they would go. She was used to the buildings of humanity, scaled to their small bodies and creations. This was different, a cavern wide and tall enough for her to fly down if she so chose. 

A pocket of snow lay just inside the mouth of the cave, tucked into an alcove that protected it from the wind. Over time it seemed that the snow had turned to ice, preserving within it a footprint. A huge, clawed footprint just like her own writ large. She set her foot against it and for the first time in her life felt small. So distracting was it that it took her a few moments to discern the shapes frozen into the floor of the cave. 

Bones. Dragon bones, each single rib as long as she was. Curled in as if to protect something. Black, clotted ice. A great skull, splintered inwards. All of it surrounded by shapes she knew too well. Broken swords, shattered spears, enough arrows to furnish a battalion. Icicles dripped from her teeth as she spoke. 

“Tell me, ranger. What happened here?”

“I am not a historian. I can only speculate.”

“Then speculate.” 

“I…” he went quiet for a long time, moving around the cave, crouching to study the ice, touching streaks of frozen soot on the walls. “Many many footprints. Roughly human sized. Boots. And marks like these usually relate to abjuration magic, but I can’t quite…” he subsided into muttering, circling around a lump of ice. "People came when this dragon couldn't or wouldn't leave the cave. Many people, with well-crafted weapons and magical power. Many many years ago, I think." 

Stepping forwards, she clawed at the darker sheets of ice until it splintered and inhaled, drawing the scent up over the roof of her mouth. Aromas she knew all too well, even held largely inert in the cold. The taste of dry ash on her tongue. Cloying, acrid smoke on the roof of her mouth. 

An ancient dragon, killed by fire, and not a coin of a hoard to be seen. 

They'd told her she had been abandoned. 

Something burned through her then, low and slow and agonizing. The same thing that had driven her after the Shade. Hatred. This was hatred. 

A sense of calm rolled over her, soothing as the snow. Hatred. Now, she had a name for it. Now, she had knowledge. 

“Tell me. Can you find your way home through the mountains?”

“I always find my way.” He was quiet as she turned, tail lashing. “You have a decision to make. Your eyes have been opened. You can choose to close them again and try to live with that choice and those memories. Many do. They can convince themselves that is right. Or you can keep them open, even if all that light is blinding, and continue forwards.”

“And what lies ahead?” 

“The future.” He laughed when she growled. “Can it be any worse than what lies behind you?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. But better or worse, you will have more freedom. Whether or not that is worth the risk…that is your choice.” She heard papers rustle. Him and that damn notebook, again. "Not everyone gets a choice, Paz'ac. Do some good with it." 

She turned into the wind and opened her wings.


	22. Chapter 22

It ought to have satisfied him to kill two old enemies. And yet he felt nothing at all. Artemis knew this grey, creeping indifference as an ancient enemy and fought it viciously. This thing, this fog was more dangerous than any poison. It had no antidote. And no matter how fiercely he fought, he could never hold it off. No, it came and swallowed him whole and turned him into a stupid, insensate shadow of himself. A dullard, a disgrace that struggled to rise in the morning, to even eat. 

Worse, it brought with it memories. 

Artemis knew this was a dream. He had been expecting it for some time now. Every single time he had grown complacent enough to feel safe, the memories returned. Things he had locked away. Helplessness, pain, fear. Hands. 

This old weakness. The past and the things he couldn’t stop or escape. Affecting him still. He could not abide such a weakness in himself. 

But this time something was different. A scent, warm and sweet. Perfume. And a sound, low and reverberating, jarring enough to pull him from the nightmare. He blinked, disorientated between the roof of the tent and the presence of someone nearby. There was a blade in his hand already, though he didn't recall fetching it from under his pillow. 

It took him a moment to realize Jarlaxle was snoring, so buried was the drow in his bedroll. But sure enough the sound eased, only to return a moment later. 

"How do you manage to make noise even in your sleep?" He hissed. There was no bite to it, for the relief of waking stayed his venom. He reached instead for his knapsack, searching for a fresh sleepshirt. Jarlaxle was oddly jealous of them, though the plain linen shirts were surely bland by his tastes. He liked the runes for protection and warmth woven into the fabric- _so clever, abbil, and such fine workmanship_ \- and seemed delighted by the concept of clothes for sleeping. Drow didn't sleep, and took reverie fully-clothed in whatever little corner they could find for themselves. That Jarlaxle could sleep at all was strange. 

If unsurprising. After all, sleep was decadent by drow standards. Of course Jarlaxle had taken to it like a duck to water. 

He unwrapped the leather bindings around the hilt of his sleeve-knife and watched the drows’ chest rise and fall. Easy to stop that entirely. Move on and leave another corpse behind. Move on with all the world a little more dull. It did not take eight hours to ride from Dunedge to Snug. Even if someone had to go into hiding. And the mare hadn't been tired enough to suggest a non stop journey. No indeed, she'd had time to stop and fill her belly full of grass.

Jarlaxle was up to something. As always. Artemis couldn't help but know a kind of grudging admiration for that. 

_I find you interesting._ He'd said it as an opening feint. Seen how quickly it slipped through Jarlaxle's guard, the panic before he parried. And perhaps he had taken a little to much pleasure in a verbal victory. He'd hoped that the drow would turn on him. Do or say something. Betray him. Prove himself as ultimately pathetic as everyone else Artemis had ever had to endure. But no. No, instead over and over he seemed determined to align himself with him. 

He had no doubt Jarlaxle would betray him if he had to. But the damn drow seemed to be trying to maneuver the situation so that he didn't have to. So that they could ride away together, unharmed. 

Perhaps that was romantic. It certainly warmed him in that fashion he had become cautious of. That fondness that bloomed when he watched Jarlaxle sleep or admire the rain or rattle around a market, knowing that no one else had ever seen the drow so vulnerable and open. 

Best to keep an eye on that, least it bloom so much it strangle him. But ah, it was a fine warmth indeed. 

He turned his boot knife over in his hands, the movement almost idle. Feeling its weighting, the connection of hilt and blade. How it would fly if thrown, how it would fare against leather, against silk. Since the first time he'd seen Paz'ac all those weeks ago, Artemis had known what he needed to do. The answer was always the same, always borne on the edge of a blade. 

Sleep came over him slowly and this time, blissfully, it was dreamless. 

He awoke to the smell of smoke. 

…

Jarlaxle hissed in annoyance as he pushed his hat down over the flames. Artemis had only fallen asleep a few hours ago, and he’d been hoping to rouse him to a nice breakfast. But something had gone wrong. The pan sizzled as he dunked it in a nearby puddle. It wasn’t quite loud enough to drown out the soft sound of amusement Artemis made as he sat up. 

“There are easier ways to send smoke signals.” 

A newly-roused abbil looked very different from his usual razor sharp self. His hair was ruffled from sleep and his eyes hooded. That soft white shirt hung a little loose around the neck, revealing the slant of a collarbone. Jarlaxle swiftly decided it far too distracting and busied himself with hiding the evidence of his cooking. 

Despite the violence of yesterday and his restless night, Artemis seemed relaxed. Too relaxed. Jarlaxle eyed him suspiciously as he fetched out his shaving kit. He wanted to do that now? It took time. Why so eager to linger when yesterday he had wanted nothing more than to be gone?

"The back of my neck is hardly so interesting," Artemis said, clearly aware of his observation.

“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps in a particular situation-” he ducked as Artemis threw a knife at him. It looked for a moment like more would follow but Artemis stilled, focusing on a bird up in the trees. They were making rather a lot of noise, Jarlaxle thought. As he stood a whole flock of them whirred overhead, crying out in harsh voices. He started as his horse snorted, lifting her head from a well trimmed patch of meadow grass. Her ears flicked forwards and she stamped. Artemis’s mare shifted nervously. If they were lizards Jarlaxle would have said there was an earthquake incoming. 

Artemis blurred into motion, abandoning the traps and tripwires and tack in favour of speed. Jarlaxle snapped the tent back into its compact form, coughing as an acrid wave of smoke rolled over them. It was all he could do to pull himself up onto Mare and cling to her mane as she broke into a gallop. 

Half the plains were ablaze, a line of crackling orange on the horizon. Birds cried out in the smoke overhead. It thickened enough to block the sun and Jarlaxle found himself experiencing darkness for the first time, the air so full of smoke as to block his darksight. How did humans survive like this?

Artemis whistled to him and led them away from the road. A wise choice, for an ambush of wire and iron teeth lay in wait for them. No men. Perhaps they were afraid to tackle the two of them directly. They crested a low hill, clear of trees and turned as one to look back at the burning plains. Beyond the smoke Jarlaxle could see bare ash and earth. The desert had only a few days of life, and yet-

“They’d destroy all of this to get at you?”

“Yes.” Artemis leaned forwards over the saddle in that fashion that meant he was selecting a target. Jarlaxle risked a limb and put a hand on his arm. 

“We can’t-”

“I can.” Artemis turned a flat stare on him and Jarlaxle almost snarled. 

“Have you not listened to a word I’ve said these past weeks?!” _Have you seen all the things I’ve done and not done?_

The gleam half-blinded both of them. Sunlight on silver, glinting on something in the sky just on the horizon. They bolted into the trees as a wall of white frost rolled towards them, blotting out the flames. Jarlaxle hissed as ice crystals stung his chest and shoulders, head swivelling. Would she crash down through the trees? Where- but no, she swept overhead. He stayed perfectly still, hand on his sword ad ears perked. Artemis made not a sound, knowing the drow had better hearing than he. 

"She has gone," Jarlaxle said finally, shoulders tight. Folk had strange reactions to the truth. Some of them acted violently against it. "Or flown so high I cannot hear her."

"Come into the trees," Artemis said. They moved on in silence, waiting for signs of attack from the sky or the underbrush. So distracted was he that Jarlaxle didn't quite realise how much distance they covered at a brisk trot. The forest ended all at once, leaving him blinking in the sunlight. The world ahead was blue, then white, then blue again. Jarlaxle squinted as the world came into focus. 

A mountain. A mountain capped with white, jutting up into the sky. 

“You want us to climb that?” As he spoke his eyes caught on a plume of smoke, dark against the snow. He traced it downwards to a town. Crucmor looked as if a boulder had fallen from the mountain, and a town carved from its upended roots and tumbled rock. The buildings spread outwards around the base, creating an upper town and a lower town. They took their defenses seriously, a great watchtower capping the boulder. A series of mirrors and flags flashed atop it, messages to the boats sailing up and down the rivers. Two of them, a virtual feast of water in the desert. One flowed south east, the other south west. The boats queued like impatient priestesses, bustling and jostling at the river gates built into the town walls. 

Strong walls at that, well-guarded. One of said guards was a wood elf, who took one look at him and put his ears flat. Jarlaxle resisted the desire to flatten his in turn. Learning to control one’s ears was a vital part of any drow upbringing. Those that couldn’t learn deception often had the muscles cut so as not to reveal themselves at an inopportune moment. 

“Good morning!”

The woodelf nocked an arrow. He stayed just out of harms way and set about reasoning, bargaining and wheedling. 

Artemis finally snarled and spurred his horse forwards. Jarlaxle fell in behind him, using him as a shield. The other guard cackled as his elven companion shrieked in outrage. 

“He can’t come in-!”

“That’s not up to you,” Artemis snapped and turned at the other one, clearly delighted by this break in boring routine. “I vouch for him, is that enough for you?”

“Aye. An elf’s an elf.” He craned his head to eye him. Jarlaxle ducked away behind Artemis, playing at shyness. “No funny business. You can leave those horses with the town stable inside the gates, no space for personal beasts on the roads during rainfest.”

Crucmor was very different from Dunedge. The buildings were barely wider than the front door and had a haphazard air to them, hewn from the very rock of the mountain. He craned his head back to count the floors and was nearly run over by a cart driver. Artemis dragged him back out of the way. The driver spat at him in passing. 

“You bring me to the nicest places.”

“I thought you might be homesick.” Now that he said it, there was something oppressively familiar about the close-packed buildings and hard-eyed stares. Jarlaxle’s hackles rose. 

“Hardly sick. But then, if I were ill, you would have to nurse me back to health-” They turned a corner and he briefly lost track of his thoughts, reaching out to grab Enteri’s arm in excitement. “Look! A floating house!”

A number of them at that, canal boats painted with flowing patterns of green and red and blue. They rocked gently to and fro in the water, a river clear enough for him to see bright orange fish feeding on the silty bottom. The houseboats were all occupied, children darting to and fro on the decks or the more mercantile vessels loading crates and clients from a ramshackle wooden dock. 

“The water here comes down from the mountain and splits into two rivers.” Artemis looked away from him as he spoke, studying a group of men at the far end of the dock. “They flow into different parts of the desert, and grow to twice their size during the rainfest.”

“Your world is a strange one, abbil.” He hooked an arm through Enteri’s and was pleasantly surprised when Artemis didn’t pull away. “All these different changing parts. Day and night and rain and grass.” 

Artemis once more led them on a tour of the back alleys until he found a particular inn. But he sidled up to this one carefully, peering in the window before heading inside. Jarlaxle shadowed him and wondered briefly how so many different taverns in so many different places managed to look so similar. Although, the way every eye turned towards them was new. The way that hands dropped to weapons. Artemis ignored all of it and went straight to the innkeeper, a halfling man who was surely standing on a stool so as to see over the counter. 

This room was tucked away in the highest part of the attic, roughly L shaped and far smaller than that of Dunedge. Jarlaxle took advantage the cramped nature to take a flying leap from doorframe to bed, sinking into a surprisingly soft mattress with a sigh of relief. Riding nearly non-stop for the past day had left him less a drow and more a bundle of collected aches and pains. 

But much as it was a relief, the inconsistency of it niggled at him. 

“Abbil, much as I like sleeping in a bed…don’t you want to keep moving?”

“I need to rest.” Strange to hear him admit it so easily. “Besides, Paz'ac seemed like she was heading for the mountain. Talk is there's a blizzard up there now.” 

“Ah, but consider! We could freeze to death and be preserved together forever.” 

Artemis shot him a look of such concern that he couldn’t help but laugh. 

A knock on the door had them both reaching for weapons. Jarlaxle thought at first it was a levitating plate, then realizing it was the halfling barkeep. He set it down, bowed quickly and was gone before he could so much as blink. Stranger yet was that Artemis only grumbled a little before lifting it inside. 

It smelled delicious. Jaraxle saw salted almonds, olives, cubes of cheese and those little red peppers Artemis was so fond of. Tiny fish fried whole in their skins, thin slices of smoked meat. Indeed, the bulk of it was foodstuffs he’d seen Artemis favour. All of that, on the house. 

“I take it you’ve done them a favour in the past.” 

“I don’t do favours.” 

“Of course you don’t.” He reached for a tiny fried fish and swallowed it whole. “These humans don’t eat in public either?”

“No, it can get the town guard on you.”

So much variation over the span of a few miles. It seemed to Jarlaxle dreadfully easy to be discovered as an outsider or interloper. 

“It is. Very easy to accidentally find yourself in a duel for insulting the honour of some fool.” Artemis sighed as Jarlaxle sat up in interest, but smiled a little a little as he spoke. “I think I must have made eye contact with his lady love, or some such nonsense. Either way, I was in Crosslane, though it had a different name at the time, and the fashion there is to swap swords before the fight to make sure it hasn’t been enchanted or anything similar.”

Jarlaxle hummed. 

“Isn’t it wise to weight the odds in your favour?”

“Only if you don’t get caught. This was some years ago, I was working alone at the time and had no money and no contacts. The nobleman had a very fine sword, much better than mine. I could have killed him, of course, but like as not the family would have been after me then for the cost of their heir. Attention and notice that I didn’t particularly want.”

“So you stole the sword instead.” Jarlaxle knew that was what he would do, in the same circumstance. Artemis looked briefly smug before looking away, as if embarrassed by such a display. 

“Sold for quite a bit the next townstead over.” 

He thought of how Artemis had changed his accent in Dunedge, just so. How he knew about the festivals, about the rain, about the countries and their customs, the gangs and their territories. 

“What lies over the mountains?”

“You have an altas.” 

“Ah, but it is better to hear from one who has walked the streets.” 

“Few enough streets. It’s colder up there, but green most of the year. The trees are bigger and keep their leaves all year round. They keep cattle rather than goats.”

That was rather vague. Artemis usually knew exactly where he wanted to go. Suspicion rose in his mind, dark and jagged. 

“Any dragons?”

“No.” The edge of Artemis’ mouth quirked. “No kings, no dragons, a lot of rain.” 

“Room to breathe.” And to assess the broader political scene, areas of conflict and opportunity as his men settled themselves into the desert. 

“You should get some rest.”

“And you?”

“I want to head to the market. Get supplies.”

Jarlaxle made a show of faux swooning onto the bed. Artemis scoffed at him and left. Left without his cloak, suggesting a short journey. 

But with enough food on the platter to tide Jarlaxle over for a day. 

Artemis never left food behind. 

Abbil was about to do something stupid.

Jarlaxle growled into the pillow and rose, pulling on his sword belt.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tw for animal death about 2/3rds through Jarlaxle's part.

Even cross, Jarlaxle had to admire how Artemis moved. Supple as a shadow, easing through the crowds. He caught up to him at the fishmarket. Artemis let out the slightest little sigh as he melted out from between two farmers.

“What tipped you off?”

“The food.” 

“Mm.” He looked away into the crowd. "Ought have let you go hungry."

Jarlaxle bristled. He had known starvation all too well. Artemis was trying to needle him with such a statement. Why?

“What are you doing?” A dozen other question clustered inside it. _Why leave? Where? What are you planning? Am I boring you? Did I do something I ought not? Let me help._

Wretched human, reducing him to the state of a neophyte. Curse him, bless him. 

“I have a job to finish, Jarx.”

The bandits? No. Artemis wouldn’t waste his time with such petty revenge.

The king. 

“Then of course I am going to help you.” He stepped forwards. Artemis slid back, chin tilting down to cover his throat. 

“Help. Help yourself, more like.”

“It can be both. More than one person might benefit from such a-” And that was a lie. Going after a King, a matron, that was a fool idea when he had barely established himself. When he had no contacts, no network, no clever drow accomplices. When he didn’t understand the feuds between houses, the worries of the commonfolk, the beliefs that drove them. 

_It doesn’t matter. I’ll be there with him._ He had invested too much to let him kill himself over something so- the skin on the back of Jarlaxle’s neck prickled. He turned. A man and a woman, rough of feature and carriage, approaching in the fast manner that suggested violence. It clicked as he stepped back towards Artemis. The two men, killed so brutally and left out in the open. The delay to sleep, if only for an hour. The lingering in this town. 

“You did this on purpose!”

Artemis had the gall to smile. A charming smile at that. Lout!

“How long have you been planning this?!” From the start, most likely. It was a prolonged version of his usual desert tricks- lure someone into overextending and then double back. But this time he wasn’t targeting the thing that chased him. He was targeting the thing that sent it. The king he’d never had the chance the kill, the one who’d driven him out of the desert in the first place. Of course he was. Artemis was nothing if not ultimately quite predictable. He didn’t leave enemies alive.

“Go up over the mountain with the next caravan. I’ll find you after,” Artemis said, and Jarlaxle knew he meant it. And then he stepped backwards, vanishing into the heaving crowds. 

“Get back here!” Jarlaxle snarled as the two brutes advanced on him. Another came in from the left and he cursed, drawing a dagger.

The next few seconds passed him fast and bloody. This town didn’t tolerate swords, but beltknives were common. And before he’d had his name as protection, before his hat and his sword and his eyepatch, Jarlaxle had had his knives. But skill didn’t matter. By the time he’d dropped the group of them, panic had spread. Noise, guards approaching and shouting at him. Blocking the quick route to the docks, doubtless the same one Artemis had taken. Growling low to himself, he bolted down the nearest alley and circled around towards the docks. But word had spread- he drew back as two more guards appeared before him, blocking his route. Scrambling up onto the rooftops gave him a few seconds to breathe, think.

He reached for his invisibility cloak and then paused. A boat was a small space. Even invisible, he could be discovered and find himself on the shore of a river, surrounded by the unknown. A fine adventure, but a delay he couldn't abide. 

There were other ways to travel. 

The horses were still in the stable just inside the front gate. He considered using them as cover to knock out the stablehand, make away like a bandit in the night. Instead he walked straight in, arms stretched wide. 

“Good sir, I’m here for the two black mares. I have the ticket here…” 

The man knew something was amiss. Jarlaxle could see it in his hesitation as he took the slip. And just as swiftly saw him decide it wasn’t his business. 

The elf-guard, unfortunately, had nosiness to spare. 

“Where are you going?! And with two horses? Where’s your friend?”

“We had a fight,” he declared. “I’m going away so that he’ll remember what he’s missing.” 

The human guard cackled. This was like as not more entertainment than he’d had in a two-month. Jarlaxle couldn’t bring himself to prickle the elf any further. That cretin only irked him now. Too stupid to realise that if a drow meant him ill, they wouldn’t come out into the open. And speaking of drow…he’d had his fun, running around like a youngling with only a companion and his wits. 

It was time to be Jarlaxle of the Bregan D’aerthe. 

He burned the last of his invisibility on himself and the horses. There was no time to be way laid by bandits, not now.

A spider dropped onto the edge of his hat, dangled there on a silk thread. He knew better than to flick her away. 

_I will do as I please._ It wasn’t quite a prayer, wasn’t quite a promise. _I am the perfect drow. I go abroad with deception, surviving where all want me dead._

_I know You can hear me._

_You can’t have me. I will make a deal, perhaps. But You can’t have me as You do all the others, for nothing but empty promises and borrowed power._

_And because of that alone, I am a better drow than all those who think themselves favoured._

And because he was a drow, made to adapt and survive, Jarlaxle dragged himself away from the luxury of sleep and sank instead into reverie. Mild enough that he could twitch the reins every now and again, drive the horses on as the meadows faded and turned to sand. He rode the first one till she dropped dead with exhaustion, and then mounted up on the second. 

Dunedge had been reclaimed by the Si'sial army. He saw it with half his mind as he rode past, the other half at rest. Paz'acs retreating army had turned the river-lands to mud beneath their churning feet. The sun had baked it hard, preserving footprints and the debris tossed aside by frantic soldiers. 

His first sign of company was the cave next to the salt-flats, washed clean by the rising waters. Here his men had left messages, drow runes daubed on the walls. He crossed the salt-pans by night this time, shuddering as the dead-magic zone made all his trinkets mute. The stars remained beautiful as ever out here.

His ears twitched, and he smiled quite unbidden at the unmistakable sounds of drow squabbling. 

“No, turn it like that.” 

“You have it upside down, stupid.” 

“Don’t you tell me what to do!” 

Someone else sighed. Jarlaxle dismounted and eased up to poke his head over the dune, curious. Four Bregan D'aerthe footmen, recognizable by their soft, rune-woven clothing and peculiar hairstyles. The fashion now was to shave one side of the head and dye a strand in the front with some vivid colour, blue or red. Others still had taken to tattoos, white markings around the bicep or on the chest that stood out vividly against their dark skin. They looked healthy, stocky- Bregan D'aerthe men ate better than the average commoner, could afford better clothes and gear. Their chaotic assortment of patterns and colours pleased him. 

They’d managed to get their hands on a longbow. One had a hold of the centre, another the string. 

“It can’t be that different-”

He whistled to get their attention. The four of them dropped their antics and immediately pulled into a defensive formation at the sight of him. The one to the far left frowned, and announced in unsteady common-

“Who are you, wearing such garments?”

Jarlaxle laughed and answered in undercommon as he descended the dune. The words were comfortable, easy. Goodness, he’d forgotten how chewy a language overcommon was. Drowcant melted on the tongue. Once they were all convinced it was genuinely him they were near ecstatic, ushering him back to the camp and peppering him with questions. The attention was pleasing, if nearly overwhelming. Not like Artemis, where everything had to be earned.

“Now, I’m sure you all have tasks to attend to,” he said finally. They scrambled away to make use of themselves least an unpleasant trial be foisted upon them. 

The encampment had all the hallmarks of Zi’s approach to the world, tucked carefully deep within the caves and laid out as neatly as a dinner table. The taller drow appeared with his sword drawn at the sounds of such commotion, and blinked in surprise at the sight of him. Zi was everything he wanted in a lieutenant. Calm, unambitious and dominant enough to keep the younger and aggressive men in line. And more importantly, curious. A trait that had emerged in response to Artemis trouncing three drow who’d tried to ambush him. One human, a common born thing with no knowledge of his own lineage. By drow teachings it made no sense. Zi had started to gather human artifacts, teach himself their languages. Such an interest made him perfect to lead this team. Zi shook himself and bowed. 

"Jarlaxle, I didn't realize you were due to meet us."

“Zi, darling. Plans change.” They had been lovers for a time, as Jarlaxle coaxed him away from his house. “Have you had word from Van'ai?”

“He says he’s coming bearing gifts.” He frowned briefly in confusion. Such an endearing expression on him. And like as not a promise of future excitement- Van'ai must have found something excellent indeed to be so delayed. 

Zi peered into the desert after him. 

“You are traveling alone?” And that was three questions concealed in one. 

“Arax infiltrates a grand household. Work better done alone.” The drow struggled to say Artemis’s name, and in turn he disliked hearing it. Arax was very similar to their word for a small knife, hidden in the sleeve. It struck everyone as a suitable work around.

He spoke just loud enough for the more curious to hear. Artemis had killed a number of drow in his time in the underdark, so determined were they to accost him. Unable to bear the thought of a human considering itself their equal. Jarlaxle wanted to try and avoid that this time round. He didn’t have so many men to spare. 

“Ah.” Zi paused. “I’ll organize a support team.”

“No need. I will join him.” He wanted to keep a distance there. Keep Artemis apart from the drow. He already hated them so much. And besides a part of him was suddenly jealous of the truth. Better to think this was an agreed thing, than for them to know Artemis had left him and he had tolerated it. Everything about this would be considered a disorder in Menzobarrenzan. A snarl in Lolths web. The kind of thing a more vulnerable man would lose an ear over, an eye, a tooth. A man, and a human man at that. And to prefer that to a priestess? This was an act of defiance. 

He wondered briefly how Drizzt did this. How he was so stubborn and so brave and so stupid no matter what he was threatened with. 

It didn’t matter. He was what he was, and Jarlaxle was what he was. And Artemis had come to him because of what he was. 

He shook himself and bade Zi bring him to Xaj. Xaj was a mage, sold to Jarlaxle when he was barely more than a child. His mother had been wise, a low ranking woman of her house who knew the fate awaiting a man skilled in magic. Favoured as consorts, and short-lived. Particularly one like Xaj, who didn’t seem to understand the laws of power and leverage at all. 

Instead he was skilled in the way of portals. He could open portals to places he had only ever heard described, so long as he could see them on a map. Xaj had once survived a brutal house battle by opening a window into an underground lake, flooding half the house and washing away the defenders. A clever trick, one that had saved Jarlaxle perhaps ten men. Small and short-haired, Xaj certainly didn't give the impression of such ferocious power. And he shied away as Jarlaxle approached, clutching his spellbook close. 

"S- s- sir." 

"Xaj." He took out his atlas. "If you would be so kind."

"Oh." All his diffidence melted away as he reached out to touch the pages, careful sketches of buildings and people. "I think..." 

Zi folded his arms as Xaj took the book and produced a stick of chalk from somewhere in his oversized robes, crouching to draw a circle. Jarlaxle settled himself onto a nearby crate and slouched artfully so as to better hide his weariness. No food but that chewed in the saddle, no rest but for what could be eked from reverie. 

He thought of Artemis alone and captured. Suffering. 

_Not this one. Not this time. Not yet._

Xaj opened up a window before him, flinched as desert sun burned through. Jarlaxle stood and stepped through with a flourish.

"Don't break anything while I'm gone."

…

The journey on the boat had left him stiff. Artemis shifted, joints popping. Three days huddled between crates, listening to the halflings bustle around on board. All of them knew the nature of his journey, knew of him, and they had the sense to leave him alone. On the third night he had eased above board and jumped into the river, swimming to shore. It all looked much the same- that crumbled fishermans hut, the olive trees clinging to the embankment. He sheltered under them as he made his way downriver, picking up enough dust to look like a farmer or peddler of wares. 

Devk was known all through the desert as the city of glass. The great beacon, the mirror of the sands. It could be seen from twenty miles away so reflective were the glass roofs, the mosaics, the mirrors and panels and white-painted roofs. Crucmor was a decent place to leave Jarlaxle, just enough skulduggery for the drow to have fun with. But he would have loved it here. Devk was a city of colour and light. They whitewashed the stone buildings to reflect back the heat, and lined the streets with colourful mosaics of swirling blues and greens. The upper walls of the taller buildings were made of glass, reinforced with magic and iron. Glass was easily made in the desert, and they coloured it with dyes of orange and red and purple. 

Artemis slipped into the city in a crowd of country travelers, head low. The gates arched overhead, painted with white and blue. Bunting fluttered, leftovers from Rainpeace and heralds of the Feast of Flowers. When the king flooded the streets with food and wine, and held a great ball within the fortress. A masked ball, of all things. 

He had a mask already. A thing of black snakeskin. Cheap enough to pass unremarked as that of a servant or a commoner. 

Jarlaxle would have _loved_ this. 

Devk was laid out in a series of hexagonal, glass walled sections around the central fortress, perched imposingly atop a mass of black rock that rose out of the desert. All the city climbed up towards the fortress, making it hard for any invading army to take the city. Even if they claimed a section, the surrounded districts were separated from them, and the fortress and battle wizards would rain fire atop the invaders from a superior height. 

All of that leaving aside the presence of the dragon. It was a rare merchant-prince that would bankrupt himself to raise an army, only to throw them right into the teeth of such a monster.

A monster much beloved if the city was anything to go by. Everywhere he looked he saw her image, daubed in oils and paint upon whitewashed houses and glass walls. Her wings spread wide, casting shadows under which flowers bloomed. Another of her crouched low over a family, her great bulk sheltering them from a sandstorm. Another of her flying over the fields, ice turning to rain turning to verdant crops. 

No wonder they loved her so. She gave them ice, and from ice came water. 

He paused briefly, wondering at himself for noticing such a thing. Street art. Much more important were the flyers posted on every public board. Illustrated with a large flowers for the mostly illiterate population, their message was clear to anyone who’d grown up in the desert. The feast of flowers, inviting everyone to the city. Such crowds would conceal him well. 

It was a trap. Baltazan had to be alert, knew he was back in the desert. 

Artemis had never held much interest in revenge. But he did so very much like a challenge.


	24. Chapter 24

Artemis found his favorite attic was unoccupied, except for a nest of pigeons. They cooed as he climbed in in across the half-collapsed roof and down into the attic space. He suspected it had been some kind of hidden room or safe place. The door was nailed shut from the inside. Rough sleeping, but he’d taken to worse. And besides, this one had something that a mere inn did not. 

It was the nature of castles to go up on a hill. He could see it perfectly, the entire south and west face. Torches bobbed their way along the hillside. They were far fewer in number than he would have expected. Many of them had been drafted into the armies, he suspected, far flung across the desert. After all, who would dare to come so deep into the Kingdom with hostile intent? Better to guard the borders.

As he mapped the patrol routes he found himself touching the flint pendant, twisting it idly to and fro. That he moved without realizing disturbed him. Better to have thrown it in the river. And yet…

Instead he had wrapped it around his wrist. The shard of flint hung down and touched his palm. Easy to brush with the thumb, reminding himself it was there. Jarlaxle’s shyness as he had fussed and settled it around his neck, a small thing stolen for no reason other than to be a gift. Just because he wanted to give him something. How strange a thing, to have warm memories to look back on. To have a weapon to fend off the bad memories with. 

Like as not he would never see him again. Twice now he’d left him in the lurch, and the drow had antics of his own to be getting on with. He didn’t expect Jarlaxle would wait for him on the far side of the mountains. 

It was inevitable they would have parted ways, sooner or later. Better to go than be the one abandoned. 

He dreamed of the desert, and Jarlaxle squabbling with a vendor over the price of pastries. Hunger coiled in his stomach like a snake as he woke. He almost missed the drow’s haphazard attempts at cooking. 

Enough of that. 

He needed fabric. Enough for a loose shirt, and the waistcoat and trousers that he’d seen the manservants wearing when they stepped out from the kitchen. Fortunately, Devk was a trade town. Great caravan trains made their way across the desert, and the everriver carried boats even through the dry seasons, just deep enough for canny merchants to take their wares downstream. He fetched what he needed, careful to keep his distance from street guards least they notice him and remember his face in the next few days. 

Darkness came seeping over the horizon just as he finished hemming the sleeves. The Devkens greeted it with the most unholy cacophony of noise. Artemis made his way down to street level and drew into a side road, grimacing as people whooped and battered pots and pans together. Some of the more innovative had gotten their hands on magical fireworks. Sparks of purple and orange burst against the night sky. A cluster of women skirted around him, all of them wearing bird masks and dressed in a different colour. A group of men dressed as lizards followed soon after. The lower streets of the city became large street parties, but the upper streets were much quieter.

It occurred to him suddenly that he’d never taken part in the many religious festivals of the desert. He’d always been working, used them as cover or a distraction. Much as people grated upon him, the crowds they created were a good place to hide. 

Slowly but surely, he wove his way towards the castle. He could pass himself off as a servant, so long as he was careful. They’d hired on extra hands for the ball. He’d blackened down his hair to hide the grey. With the mask and the uniform he looked like half the men in the desert. Now he just needed to get inside. 

The guards were checking identification at the door, all of them dressed like hounds. He went in over the fence instead. The iron railings were painted with ward-oil, a faintly shimmering silver when one looked at them the right way. But the week of steady rain had weakened them, enough for him to climb. The air thickened around him at the apex of the fence, leaving him struggling as if he was sunk up to his neck in mud. 

A torch appeared in the distance. Shifting, he stretched out as far as he could. Sticky traps like this had a limited radius. Grabbing onto the next rung, he hauled himself out of the sticky trap and dropped down, keeping himself low to the ground as the guard continued past. Boots crunched on gravel, stopped. He held his breath. 

“Oi! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Smoke break.” Artemis stood, straightening the waistcoat. “Didn’t reckon I’d get one once all the fancies started to show-”

“Get your arse back up to the kitchen!” The guard snapped. Artemis made sure to shirk as he skirted around him, the very picture of a castigated servant. He had almost reached the kitchen courtyard when he saw the carriage rolling towards the castle gates. A fine thing of subtle dark wood and velvet curtains that only the truly rich could afford. And Artemis got to look on as it drew to a halt and he himself stepped out of it. 

A highly idealised version of himself, wearing a black hat with a white feather of every maddening thing. The mask was that of a magpie, gilded with gold. A short black cape hung around his shoulders, a white shirt with broad sleeves, and trousers far tighter than Artemis himself would ever wear. How was he even walking in those?

 _Bastard._ His heart hammered. _Idiot._

Jarlaxle was gone in a flicker of black silk before Artemis could decide what to do. 

_I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill Balthazan and then I’m going to kill him and throw both their bodies in the moat._

How had he even gotten down here? He’d bribed the boatswains to keep a drow off their vessels. They’d needed very little convincing. Unless he’d cut right back across the desert, but even then…

 _A weapon in your arsenal, abbil. I shall aspire to be a knife._

A knife that pricked him, occasionally. But, then, that was only in their nature as a knife. He'd known what Jarlaxle was, long before they'd ever reached the surface. 

Turning, he followed around the edge of the castle until he found the kitchen courtyard. 

“YOU!” 

The head chef hurtled towards him with a cleaver. Had he been recognized so swiftly? She thrust a platter of tiny pastries into his hands. 

“HERE. THESE, UPSTAIRS WITH THE OTHERS. QUICK!” 

Tomato tarts, arrayed with a few flakes of goats cheese and crushed olives. He stole two on the way up the stairs, quite without realizing, and tucked them away in an inner pocket. All extraneous trains of thought began to shut down, all the distractions and doubts. 

He was here to kill. It didn’t matter that Balthazan had almost killed him once before, had left him in such penury that he’d needed to rent himself out to another bandits guild. Didn’t matter that he’d leered more than Artemis had cared for. He was here to kill, and that was all. And if he happened to have another set of eyes and ears, well. That ought to make things all the easier. 

…

Jarlaxle lifted two glasses of wine off the nearest platter, taking in the scenery. This was a fine room, all rose quartz and pink marble. Tall windows stood open to the gardens, already open against the heat of so many bodies pushed together and the huge candelabras that hung from the ceiling. Gauzy white curtains fluttered gently in the breeze. They weren’t dancing yet, much to Jarlaxle’s disappointment. No dancing until the king appeared. Where was he, then? 

They had taken weapons off people at the door. He, of course, had his bracers and his rapier tucked away inside his hat. And he wasn’t the only one to seek ways around it- he could see the shape of a dagger just beneath that man’s arm, and that fan seemed a little more weighed than it ought, as if she’d laid sharp metal blades along the ribs. 

Already he could hear people debating who he was. No one challenged him directly, no one wanted to be seen to be unknowing. It wasn’t so different from drow high society, not really. More men and more colour. But that man there had just poisoned a goblet, and that woman bribed a waiter for some unknown purpose. Just a moment later glass shattered and someone wailed as a platterful of wine went over their new gown. 

He smiled into his drink and took advantage of the distraction to slide a little further along the room. She was right to wail, for it was a very fine gown. The nobles here seemed to favour pastel colours, soft creams and rosy pinks. Hems were dotted with small glass beads and the shapes were loose, bell trousers and broad-sleeved tunics aiming for comfort in the desert heat. He glanced down at his sleeves, making sure the shape of the bracers hadn't poked through the illusion. It was strange to see human hands, Artemis’s fingers curled around a glass rather than a knife. It looked wrong, somehow. 

_Now. If I were abbil, where would I be?_

Somewhere dark and high up. Somewhere he could see without been seen. Draining his glass, Jarlaxle scooted around a guard and made his way up the smooth marble steps of the broad imperial staircase at the back of the room.

There was a man up here in the darkness, alright. But it wasn’t Artemis.

“Well now. Who might you be?”

And oh, wasn’t that a question. But Jarlaxle was wearing a borrowed face. He said nothing at all and instead leaned against the nearest pillar, hiding and shielding himself from below. Which gave this Balthazan, this king of men, enough time to recognise him. 

“Enteri. You look well.”

Jarlaxle said nothing. Artemis wouldn’t answer such a pleasantry. Instead he studied him hard, trying to see what made a leader of men. Tall, but not overly so, with the same bronzed skin and dark eyes common in the area. He wore his hair nearly as short as Artemis did, with a neat black beard to match. A light build, softening with age, all nearly contained within a fine brocade tunic of blue and gold. No mask but a crown of woven gold wire and glass beads, glittering in his hair. 

And yet despite all that he didn’t look anything so impressive at all. No aura of ferocity and certainty as came with drow matrons. No sense of ambition and cunning as came with the men. Not even like Artemis, subtle and dangerous as a knife in the dark. There was nothing different about him at all. 

_I could kill him now. Save abbil the trouble._ And maybe he would like that, to have this brute slaughtered for him, as a gift. It would be romantic, would it not? It would tell him that Jarlaxle cared for his safety and comfort, without using so many words. More likely, he would be outraged at such interference- 

It wasn’t motion so much as a suggestion of motion that tipped him off. This balcony had two sets of stairs leading up to it, one from either side. A shape shifted in the darkness. Artemis was taking advantage of his unintended distraction, creeping up the steps, avoiding the notice of the guards below and the king himself. 

He had to keep Balthazan focused on him. 

Jarlaxle tilted his head just so. 

“I want my gold.”

“Oh? I paid you in full. You never killed the king, after our little disagreement.” He sighed, tilting the goblet to and fro as he stared out over the gardens. “Really, you could have warned me it was such a messy business.”

Jarlaxle let himself scoff very quietly, the barest sound above a whisper. And was grateful that the younger Artemis had sensed the wires of a trap closing around him. An easy thing to do, after a spate of kings killed. Set an assassin on the final target and then have your guards capture him. Take the throne grieving the loss of your father, but glad the scoundrel had been captured. 

Balthazan laughed. A pleasing sound, mellow and smooth. 

“Trust the Snake to know a trap.”

He let himself grimace a little at that, luring a response. And sure enough-

“Ah, I forget how little you cared for such things. Ever the professional.” He set down the goblet and straightened, turning towards him. “Come now, twas only business. Naught personal. I was a prince among princes. It’s a difficult life to lead.” 

“And now you are a king among kings.” 

For the first time he saw the mask slip. 

“ _Above_ kings.”

“Is that right.” 

“Why yes!” He gestured broadly, and Jarlaxle realized that the ballroom floor below was laid out as a map of the desert. Half of it was covered in blue tiles. “I ought to thank you, really. You did a magnificent job of destabilizing the area enough for an all-out invasion. How about a title?” 

“Nobility wouldn’t suit me.” Although that was almost tempting, just to see the look on Artemis’s face. 

“No, indeed. What about a job?” 

He said nothing in answer. 

“Stay here, act as a bodyguard.”

“You have guards.”

“None of your fathom. As your presence here shows.” He inclined his head somewhat, eyes flickering briefly up and down. “And besides. A pity for a man your age to be so alone.”

It was all Jarlaxle could do not to punch him in the throat.

Artemis shifted forwards. He was less than ten feet away now.

The sound came first as a feeling. A hum, if a hum were hundreds of voices together. And beneath that something deeper, louder, something that vibrated through the very stones of the floor and made the windows rattle in their frames. 

Balthazan closed his eyes briefly. 

“That bloody dragon.”


	25. Chapter 25

Three things happened all at once. The crowd murmured and turned as the fireworks outside flashed and reflected off silver scales. Paz’ac’s call grew louder, a low reverberating cry that rattled the windows in their frames. 

And Artemis struck. Magic flared briefly white-blue as he struck the wards surrounding Balthazan. The king started and turned, mouth opening. A ward caught Artemis' sword, but they didn’t catch the knife. Artemis aimed for the neck, but the necklace there pulsed to a shield, driving the blade aside. Balthazan gasped as it sank deep into his shoulder, all elegance gone. The section of brocade surrounding it flashed white. Jarlaxle threw himself flat on the floor. Artemis followed suit as a pulse of energy rippled outwards, slamming into everything above waist height. 

The king was gone as he straightened.

“Why didn’t he keep the guards closer?”

“This was supposed to be a trap. He was trying to lure me into the open.” Artemis drew a longer blade out of his boot, narrow and sharp like a giant sewing needle. "I don’t look like that.” 

Jarlaxle fluttered his borrowed eyelashes - so long and delicate, really, abbil had such lovely eyes. But he wouldn't look at him, not even after he'd come all this way-

“This is how you look to me. Though I must say, that uniform suits you mightily.” Distractingly so, in fact. Much tighter than the things Artemis naturally gravitated towards. “Don’t look so glum, it’s a party-”

But anything else he wanted to say was cut short. That guard had gotten suspicious and now advanced up the stairs, head craning towards them. 

Jarlaxle thought fast and acted faster, throwing the short black cape and mask into Artemis’s arms. One of his necklaces heated, fizzled away, and he staggered briefly under the weight of a brocade coat and a human beard. 

“Sire?”

“Quite alright. Why don’t you go back to keeping an eye on that hallway?” He tried to deepen his voice but resisted the desire to wink. Kings likely didn’t wink. The guard eyed Artemis, who’d turned his face coyly away. A warbling roar outside made him turn, and a number of the assembled noble cooed and floated outside as Paz’ac swept low enough over the garden to make the torches gutter. 

“Go get him,” Jarlaxle said. His eyes were on the window, too unsettled to look Artemis in the eye. “I can play the part a time, let you get a head-start.”

“And when you’re discovered?” Artemis’s hand twisted through his illusion to take his arm, squeezing a little tighter than was comfortable. “Why didn’t you stay in Crucmor?”

“Can’t let you have all the fun, abbil. Now go catch him before he alerts any more guards.” 

Artemis looked like he might burst with frustration. But he was, at the end of the day, a hunter with blood on his teeth. He went, melting into the darkness of the castle. 

Jarlaxle turned to look out over the assembled nobles. All of them waiting on him, not daring to dance until he did. A world that was not his. All that power. He would rather like to be a king. If only for a day. The guards straightened up as he appeared, and woman in a fine silk dress raised her voice to announce him as he descended. So different from drow, where to appear suddenly and startle the other houses was considered a feat. 

First, he made a beeline for a poor lady who’d had wine spilled down her dress. She was trying to hide behind a large fern. 

“What a unique pattern! You’ll have to give me the name of your tailor.”

Whoever she was, it was a scandal if the whispers and mutters were anything to go by. Like as not Balthazan was very careful who he showed favour to. 

Kissing someone would probably cause all kinds of chaos. He cast his eye around for a likely target. 

Paz’ac had set her head and shoulders through the great doors that opened into the garden. Her tail coiled around a fountain, and she’d hooked her wings onto the archway, fanning them to send little puffs of cool air into the room. The people flocked around her like doves, cooing and touching her shoulders to get her attention. In turn she dipped her jagged head to listen to them, her teeth flashing as she spoke. No one seemed afraid of her in the slightest. If anything he was rather reminded of a philosophers salon, though without the threat of an inquisition raid. 

Perfect. A war-hero and a scholar to boot. 

She looked healthier than last he’d seen, her scales shot through with strands of opalescent white and soft violet. Jealously rose up inside him, bitter as blackroot poisoning. What he could do with such talents! Already a fire burned in his stomach. What could he do if it were real fire, with wings and teeth and a tail to go with? What he could do with all the world open to him, with scales like jewels and claws like an armoury of swords! 

“Cizan.” Who? Ah, the kings new name. “I would have a word with you.”

The scales in her throat flickered blue as she spoke.

He’d managed to pick exactly the wrong face for exactly this occasion. How irritating. 

But before he could decide how best to handle it Paz’ac’s nostrils flared. 

Ah. 

The perfume. 

Throwing all pretense to the wind, he dived for cover. A paw swiped overhead, demolishing a table. The elegance of the gathering disintegrated as the nobles scrambled away, shrieking. 

“Guards!” Paz’ac flicked the tables aside with a sweep of her forepaw. “That is not-”

“Sire!” A guard grabbed him and hauled him behind the nearest pillar. Rather to his surprise, it seemed that the guards had been prepared for this eventuality. Those that had guarded the front gate came rushing in with their halberds, forming a makeshift wall between him and Paz’ac. She snapped her head aside, the next wave of frost rolling up against the ceiling. 

“Move!” Her voice was all the more thunderous, reverberating off the walls. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

And despite all his cunning, Jarlaxle could feel himself beginning to tire. He was not so young as he had been. The non-stop journey back across the desert had tired him, even with all his bangles of strength and necklaces of stamina. 

Releasing the illusion was a relief. But it didn’t quite have the effect he was looking for, not until he elbow dropped the nearest noble. He ducked as a woman came at him with a wine bottle. Skidding under an outstretched arm, he grabbed the edge of a tablecloth and pulled it as hard as he could. A veritable dowry's-worth of glassware hit the floor. That got people scrambling something proper, the half of them bolting from him as the other half came for him with improvised and hidden weapons. Paz’ac jerked back as they rushed around her, lifting her wings so as not to knock any of them over. Buying him seconds.

And better yet, the guards had now appeared. 

Magic fluttered as he summoned an orb of darkness around the chandelier, plunging the ballroom into shadow. He ripped off the loose sleeves of his shirt so that they wouldn't tangle in his sword and darted for the doors that led deeper into the castle. 

The first guard to charge him was a big one. He used the size well, bullying him back towards Paz’ac. He felt chill air on his back and bared his teeth. The man grabbed at him and Jarlaxle ducked left, sliding under the nearest table to come out near the stairwell once more. A cluster of guards started at the sudden sight of him. He kicked the captain in the back of the leg, flicked another on the ear. A number broke to chase him into the bowels of the castle.

Paz’ac roared in frustration behind him. The inner corridors were too small to accommodate her and with the guards in pursuit, she didn't dare blast ice into the castle after him. And complex corridors they were, for the whole castle was honeycombed with narrow intersecting hallways and large room. A defense against the desert heat and invaders both. He led them a merry dance, finally losing them by jumping off another stairwell, swinging down to the ground floor via use of a hanging curtain. 

A pity abbil wasn’t here to roll his eyes at such extravagance. But his high spirits faded at the thought of Artemis, doubtless alone and bloody. He needed to find him before they were overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Starting in the outer corridors, he began to circle his way inward until he heard the subtle, distinct sounds of a swordfight. 

Perhaps there was a reason this Balthazan was king, after all. Jarlaxle found them on an imperial staircase in one of the inner halls, a vast room of pale marble topped by a great glass dome. Dead and dying guards lay strewn about them. He’d held his own against Artemis for minutes. But he was disarmed and bled from a deep wound on his shoulder. Artemis harried him in steady fashion, weaving to and fro. He used the knife and the tip of his swords to unravel the magical wards, Jarlaxle realised. Oh, that was clever. 

Jarlaxle broke through another with a quick thrust of his rapier, the magic splintering around it like glass. Wards reformed themselves, but with enough damage a determined fighter could break through. Balthazar jerked away from him with a curse, eyes darting between them. 

“Come now. Surely we can come to some kind of arrangement.”

But fun as that would be, the guards had finally caught up. Grabbing onto Artemis’s hand, he levitated them both down to ground level. But the guards had gotten wise to him, for more of them came streaming in from the hallways on either side. Even Jarlaxle had to admit this looked grim.

“Surrender, and I may let you live.” Balthazan’s eyes glittered. 

“I don’t like that arrangement.” Artemis moved. A drow crossbow. One of Jarlaxle’s, an absent minded gift to him in the underdark that he had never asked back. He had just enough time to see it was capped with flint before Artemis fired. 

The arrow struck Balthazan right in the eye, throwing him back from the railing. And in the heartbeat of stillness after, Artemis grabbed Jarlaxle’s arm and moved. Not towards the nearest guard, but towards a great tapestry that hung on the wall, heaving it aside. And beneath it, a door. 

An arrow punched through the weaving as Jarlaxle hurtled after him, but the fabric was thick enough to stop it dead. 

The passageway was so narrow he had to turn to fit through it, and entirely dark. By silent agreement Artemis crouched so that Jarlaxle could half climb over him, leading the way down a sharply sloping tunnel. He broke into a sprint, baring his teeth as he broke through spider webs. 

_Not him. Not yet._

“How did you know this was there, abbil?”

“Servants tunnel. One of the maids told me about it, so that I could get a look at the war hero’s quarters if I wanted.” 

It looked like it had been a ballroom once, with black and white tiles and a high vaulted ceiling. And the same tall windows and doors, leading out into the gardens. Jarlaxle broke the glass rather than picking the lock. Gravel crunched under his feet, then grass. Then frost. 

Jarlaxle went left and Artemis went right, and Paz’ac came to a skidding halt through the gardens, blasting a wave of frost before her. It fetched up against the wall of the wall, freezing over the windows and doors. 

“I smell blood. Whose?” Her tail lashed, knocking a chunk of parapet off the roof overhead. Archers fell back, yelping in panic. Jarlaxle eased forwards, peering into the gardens. Artemis ducked behind a statue of some ancient queen. His eyes were on the railings, some fifty feet hence. It might as well have been a mile. 

“A real woman would be warmer, abbil.” He spoke with his hands and grinned, knowing it would be bright in the dark. Anything he might have signed in return was lost as Paz’ac roared.

“Why did you come back?” 

And it came to him suddenly, how she had sealed the doors that none might follow, how she’d smashed the archers stands. He heard her leap, heard the air rip around her. Her teeth clicked harmlessly overhead even as her tail smashed a fountain. 

So, curiosity had overwhelmed rage. He broke into the open and raced for the edge of the castle.

It took him a moment to realize she wasn’t chasing. 

“You.” She’d whirled around in a tight circle, following through from her half-hearted snap to chase Artemis instead. Her wings half opened as she moved, gliding downhill. Jarlaxle teleported twice in quick succession, trying desperately to catch up. Artemis in turn sprinted for the city streets. She jumped and inhaled deeply, filling up her airsacs but keeping her wings clamped shut. It carried her over Artemis’s head, and flicking one wing open brought her to a halt between him and the wall. 

“D’ianai!” The diatryma burst into life with a squawk, already running. He took two steps alongside her and grabbed a handful of feathers to pull himself up. “Quick, quick! Like its the upper-house derby!”

Artemis had run into a small glasswall maze to evade Paz’ac. Her head and shoulders came low to the ground as she snaked in after him. 

Standing up on D’ianai’s back, he jumped. He’d done this for a time as a youngster. Mounted stunts to impress the commoners, jousting over chasms. To the death, as with all things drow. 

Paz’ac howled as he landed at the nape of her neck, driving his sword into a gap in her scales. Jarlaxle had a split-second to feel very clever indeed, before she opened her wings and took off. He barely had time to make his boots stick, to grab tight to his sword as the world whirled around him. Darkness, the gleaming orange lights of the city overhead, then the fireworks of the night sky. 

Even magic couldn’t hold out against such force. He was hurled away into the dark. 

And stopped by a hand on his cloak. 

Artemis had gotten entangled in her tail, stripes of white silk wrapped around his arm. It was clearly dislocated from Paz’ac’s whirling. His face tightened as he took Jarlaxle’s weight. He activated his cloak, but with the speed of Paz’ac’s flight it did very little other than have him whip around like a toy on a string. Artemis growled in protest. 

“We’re near the ground!” Jarlaxle burned a ring to project his voice over the wind roaring past. Artemis nodded cut himself loose with a swipe of a dagger. Jarlaxle grabbed onto him, wincing as it jerked abbil’s shoulder, and started to float them down. And for all the chaos, it was very beautiful indeed. The moon was huge and yellow, hanging low on the horizon. The city gleamed in the distance, the sky lit up with purples and greens. Even the desert itself seemed silver, shimmering in the night. 

Paz’ac wheeled back towards them in the distance. Jarlaxle brought them to a running halt in the sand. 

“Here.” He was down to his last few potions. Artemis took it quickly, eyes on Paz’ac even as his shoulder popped back into place with an audible grind. “You had a bolas?”

“I had silk left over.”

“And you wasted it on that?” He could think of many better uses for a bolt of silk. Artemis didn’t answer him, fetching something out of his sleeve. Jarlaxle barely had time to recognize it as a firework. He spun away as light flared. It screamed as it launched into the sky, drowned out by a bellow of anger as it erupted in a shower of brilliant orange sparks against Paz’ac. Jarlaxle went right and Artemis left as she came to a crashing halt between them, throwing up a great bank of sand in her wake. 

A starburst pattern of black soot smudged her chest and neck, stark as she heaved herself up. But it hadn’t burned or even dazzled her. A realisation brought to him by a tail-strike. This time she struck him full in the chest. Even through his wards he felt something break, a burst of red hot pain, a sense of breathlessness. 

_Up, up. You’ve had worse than this. You aren’t that old._ And that voice sounded just like Artemis, urging him to his feet despite a gasp of white pain. 

Paz’ac had learned, learned that they tended to scatter, that Jarlaxle distracted while Artemis fled. 

She had him, pinned to the sand in a cage of claws. He’d driven a dagger into her foot, at the gap between claw and toe. Even in the face of futility he spat blood.

“Is he dead?” Paz’ac’s words were barely coherent, wrapped in a belly-deep snarl. 

“Yes.” Artemis had never been one to explain himself. 

“Hm.” Her head drew back, the scales of her throat glowing faintly blue. 

He wasn’t going to get there in time. 

Yet her head didn’t snap forwards. Frost didn’t blossom in the chill desert night.

Jarlaxle slammed into her forepaw as hard as he could. It wasn’t enough, nothing more than a distraction. So it surprised him all the more as it lifted away. Artemis twisted loose immediately, skirting off sidelong into the darkness. Jarlaxle veered off into the night, running the opposite way. 

Paz’ac didn’t chase them. He looked back only briefly, to see her sitting with her tail wrapped around her legs, wings closed and eyes burning in the dark. 

“I do not believe in revenge. But I think there is something to be said for justice.” 

He heard Artemis curse in annoyance, somewhere in the dark.

“Go from this place, and do not return.”

Gladly. He went, readjusting his swordbelt where it had been nearly shaken loose during that last mad flight. All of his necklaces had gone into a tangle. Unraveling what he could, he made his way up the nearest dune and skidded down the far side, pleased when he didn’t stumble over his own feet. 

Artemis finally decided to appear, looming out from between two boulders. 

“You’re going the wrong way.”

Jarlaxle came to a halt, almost too tired to be angry. Almost. 

“Am I?”

He wouldn’t have tolerated this off anyone else. Off anyone else except Zak. 

A squawk had them both turning. Jarlaxle crowed in delight as D’ianai came trotting over the nearest dune, gurgling at the sight of them.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Readers can have a little smut, as a treat.

They traveled east for three days.

Artemis said nothing to him for two and a half. 

On the third night they pitched near an oasis. Artemis crawled into the sleeping bag next to him. And then punched him on the arm so that it went numb from the elbow down. Jarlaxle immediately kneed him in the stomach. 

“That was a foolish thing.”

“I know.” He looked up at the ceiling of the tent. “As are you.”

“All went as I planned it.” 

Jarlaxle scoffed, then winced as it pulled on his ribs. He’d fixed up the bone, but the softer parts of the body took longer to heal themselves than the hard. 

“Why did you follow?” Artemis’s eyes were greyer than ever in the dark. “I thought I was mean enough to make you leave.”

Jarlaxle resisted the urge to fold his arms, and wished they were having this conversation in an inn. Where he could occupy his hands with a glass, hide half his body under the table. 

“Political instability suits me. People pay good money to escape dangerous situations, abbil. And it will give my men some practice.”

“Practice?”

“With humans and moving them around.” Jarlaxle leaned back and twisted, cracking out his spine. “There’s a lot of humans in the Underdark, abbil. And I imagine they have people who want them back.”

Artemis scoffed. 

“Trafficking.”

“Rescuing.” And how very dashing that would be. 

“For a price.”

“I run a business, abbil. And besides, my prices are very reasonable.” Menzobarrenzan relied on slave labour. To remove it would destabilise the entire economy, force the upper houses to take on common drow instead. Usually young men without many family connections. Of whom he had already gathered a fine amount, or at least garnered some loyalty from. 

Sooner or later, he would have strings in every house in Menzobarrenzan. He would know of feuds before they even started. Everyone would need to come to him.

_I am the perfect drow._

“Indeed. They’ll just end up owing you a favour.” His voice was bitter. If anything drove him off, it would be this. The reminder of what Jarlaxle was. 

He wasn’t very surprised when Artemis wriggled free and vanished out of the tent. 

_Go. Just go. Fly free of me._

Then it would all be a memory, sweet and sharp like honey. Artemis had wound his way into his mind and heart. Jarlaxle wasn’t so sure he enjoyed it anymore. Sex was well and good, a meeting and a parting, a pleasant memory. This was something else. More than anyone else in quite some time, Enteri had the capacity to hurt him. And not in the usual fashion, of knives and poison and blackmail. In an intimate way. 

Jarlaxle was older than he cared to admit, and his heart had been broken before. It was better this way. He would be sore for a while. But in twenty years or so, it would be a fine ache, aged like a good wine. Something to reminisce over, the time he had tried to be rain to the desert. A thing that came only briefly and left flowers in its wake. 

He’d almost soothed himself back to sleep when Artemis reappeared. He had combed his hair and washed his face. And, most terrible of all, rolled his sleeves back to his elbows. 

It ought to mean nothing. He had seen him naked, after all. But goodness, those were a thing of beauty. Jarlaxle briefly faced a fresh dilemma. Surely a little seduction would do no harm? As a goodbye? 

“I am curious, Abbil. If you meant to run off after the king, why wait for me in Snug?”

“I didn’t care to leave you on your own in bandit country.” Artemis rummaged through his pack as if he had lost something, though he was usually very tidy. “Those poor bandits.” 

“They would not be poor for long with me at their head.” Jarlaxle shifted onto his side as he spoke, knowing that displayed him to best effect. He let his bracelets clink, mostly to irritate Enteri. Instead the man shifted around so as to hide his face all the better. 

“I am curious in turn. Why so determined to follow me?” 

“Your rump is magnificent.” Artemis turned to glare and Jarlaxle found himself skirting it, looking down at his bedroll and smoothing a crease from the blue silk. “I enjoy your company. You know what I am and do not ask something other of me.” 

“That seems a small reason.”

“A diamond is small and yet it is sought after and valued.” _Don’t make me speak of this._ And yet his mouth betrayed him. “This is rare for me, abbil. You have to know that by now.” 

_Don’t doubt the rarity of that which you have. Don’t you hurt me. Don’t you dare._

But his vicious internal litany was interrupted as Artemis finally turned back to him, holding out a slim dark box. 

… 

“You got me a present?” Jarlaxle’s whole demeanor changed instantly, his ears and shoulders relaxing. The drow had almost been on the edge of snarling at him. 

“It was a masquerade ball. I didn’t want you to feel left out.” Artemis was keenly aware of how shaky he was. This was worse than his first kill. Why? He didn’t feel nervous at all. He tensed himself purposefully, limiting the extent of the trembling. He was remembering things he did not care to. He had hoped that killing Cizan would cure this, send all the creeping old memories away. 

No. Perhaps the answer instead was to make new ones. 

Arrayed only in his jewelery and bracers, Jarlaxle reached for the box like a shadow given hands. He usually slept such, for his bedroll kept him perfectly warm and he insisted that silk was excellent for the complexion. It seemed ridiculous. But then, his collections of chains and bangles and rings protected him much better than mere cloth. And he couldn’t deny that it was quite the vision, a drow near blending into the dark, highlighted by gold and silver. He looked like a piece of the night sky had grown legs and come to earth. Argent chains glinted around his left ankle, bracelets bunched and clustered on his wrists, rings on his fingers. He had changed all the necklaces again, and now it was a ribbon of frothy white lace around his throat, a ruby pendant. 

And somewhere in Dunedge he had picked up kohl. Gold, not black, shimmering on his eyelids. An absolute frivolity, and a very handsome one. It framed his eyes very nicely as they narrowed, inspecting the gift. A mask, smooth purple silk. Less a mask and more a blindfold. Jarlaxle’s ears perked, but he was quiet as his hands smoothed over the silk. 

“You’ve spoken of such a thing before. But if you prefer, that panel slides out, and it will be a way to protect your eyes from the sun.”

“Hm.”

His skin prickled in the same way that often warned him of an imminent attack. Which it was, of a sort. Jarlaxle shifted in beside him far too easily, resting his cheek against his shoulder and looping an arm around his waist. 

“Well? What do you want?” He grabbed the hand snaking towards his belt and twisted. Jarlaxle popped his chin on his shoulder, studying him with that hooded ruby gaze that he both craved and wanted to avoid. 

“You.” Then he smiled. Not the toothy grin of Menzobarrenzan, just a little quirking of the lips. A smile for him alone. 

It was hard to see a blush on a drow, with their skin running so dark. But he could feel the heat of one as he pushed him back, down onto bedroll and pressed his lips against his stomach. Jarlaxle was unbelievably soft to the touch, as if he bathed in oil every morning. He shifted under him, mumbling. Artemis thought he heard his name in there, the shortened drow version of it. It was all a little headier than he wanted and he drew back to steady himself, taking a slow breath. 

Jarlaxle was watching him when he looked up, two red slits shining in the dark. So knowing. He smiled back despite himself as the drow pushed the mask into his hand.

The book had had a chapter on this, too. It still struck him as ridiculously risky, rendering oneself blind. Nearly as bad as that part with the handcuffs. But he had to admit there was something to this, something in Jarlaxle’s face that warmed him as he slipped it over the drows face. A mix of apprehension and anticipation. He tilted his head into his hands as Artemis tied it off, off-setting the knot so that it wouldn’t dig into his head. 

Curious, he brushed a thumb along the point of his ear and was rewarded with a short huff, Jarlaxle’s lips parting.

He couldn’t see a thing. Couldn’t predict what he was going to do next, what he would touch. Artemis shifted back, a plan forming. Jarlaxle was very good at tormenting him and he rather wanted revenge. 

The drow started beneath him as he ran a finger under the choker, searching for the catch. 

“Abbil?” Hands shifted up, reaching along his arms. Jarlaxle seemed so very fond of his arms. He eased one of the chunkier bangles off his wrist and set it aside. 

“I don’t imagine anyone’s ever seen you completely naked.”

“On the contrary, I assure you.” White teeth flashed in the dark, faltered as he interlinked their fingers and slipped a chunky silver ring away. He made himself pause after that, kissing the inside of his wrist. Jarlaxle’s pulse fluttered over-fast. For someone who relied so heavily on such an arsenal, to have it taken away piece by piece couldn’t be entirely relaxing. He would have to be slow about things, careful. Fortunately, he was a very patient man. 

Jarlaxle’s hand shifted, fingers carding through his hair. 

“I hope you appreciate how much trust I have in you.”

“I thought you’d prefer me having thrust in you?” It was much easier to come out with this nonsense when Jarlaxle wasn’t making eye contact. The drow scoffed at him, but shivered and arched as he slid a hand around the back of his calf and down, scooping his anklets away. 

“You had better help me put all this back on,” Jarlaxle murmured. He twisted as Artemis sat back on his heels, ears swiveling in an attempt to locate him. Setting the anklets along with the bracelets, he leaned forwards again. 

“Gladly.” He brushed a thumb over the drows stomach, half-expecting to feel the softer skin that suggested an old scar. But there was nothing at all. Jarlaxle had paid someone a lot of money to ensure he was entirely unmarked. As if no one had ever hurt him at all. Muscles fluttered as he traced a line up over his ribcage, followed the slant of a collarbone and cupped the back of his head, easing himself forwards till their lips just barely touched. 

And pushed himself away just as Jarlaxle tilted into the kiss, huffing with amusement. 

“Tease!” A frustrated Jarlaxle was a cross one. He sat back, straddling his hips, and reflected that he too was perhaps getting some enjoyment out of the blindfold. Perhaps a little too much. He took a moment to ground himself and turned his attention to the world beyond the tent, listening for any suggestion of trouble. He’d double checked the traps earlier, yes, but paranoia hadn’t failed him yet. And he didn’t particularly care to be interrupted. 

Jarlaxle’s ears perked as he heard him unbuckle his belt. 

“You could have blindfolded me after, you know.”

“I know. But where’s the fun in that?” 

Jarlaxle did look different without half a treasury of jewelry to weigh him down. All soft edges and lean muscle beneath the flashy clothing and shimmering jewels. Still dangerous, but softer. Smaller. A part of him was smug in the knowledge that this was a rare sight.

And he certainly seemed to be getting a lot more out of the blindfold than Artemis had expected, arching into every touch, muttering in undercommon. He actually whimpered when Artemis drizzled oil over his nethers. Those strange little ridges on top of his cock were stiff already and shifted slightly so as to better grip his hand when he touched him. Jarlaxle tried to grind up into him and he shifted, resting weight on one hip so as to trap him in place. Jarlaxle growled in annoyance and he could only laugh. The drow flattened his ears at him.

“I see you’ve been doing your research.”

He knew about the book. Artemis somehow wasn’t surprised. He settled back and rested his head on his hand, watching the pulse hammering in Jarlaxle’s throat. 

“I like to prepare. Besides, you’ve had centuries to study.” 

“I excel in practical learning.” 

Artemis gave him another moment to breathe before starting again. Jarlaxle murmured happily, tilting his hips up eagerly and dropping his head back onto the pillow. He curled his fingers slowly, carefully, until - ah yes, here. A little nub of flesh that stiffened with arousal and seemed particularly sensitive. He worked it over very very lightly, resting his forehead on Jarlaxle’s stomach and feeling how the drow tensed. Tensed and then softened into it, overmastering the pleasure before it peaked. That had to take some amount of control. 

He circled it, smiling as he felt Jarlaxle’s toes tightening into the bedroll, his free leg drawing up. Hands tangled into his hair. He’d let it get just long enough to tousle but too short to grab, much to Jarlaxle’s mewled frustration. 

“Use your words.” And because there was more mischief in him that he had ever cared to admit, Artemis waited for Jarlaxle to open his mouth and immediately rubbed his stubbly jaw over the softest part of the drow’s cock. 

The resulting screech made him glad he’d put a silencing charm over the tent. 

“Now tell me, you being a well-practiced student of such arts, is that a good noise or a bad one?”

And to both their surprise, he shifted forwards and laved his tongue over the same spot, very carefully. Hm. That was…not quite what he had expected. Soft, slightly salty. Not unpleasant. He didn’t think he was quite ready to take the whole thing into his mouth. But the noise Jarlaxle made rendered the prospect a lot more palatable, and the smile that blossomed on his face even more so. 

“Abbil.” It was barely a whisper, more a breath. “Oh, abbil.” 

More oil. 

Parts of this was almost familiar now. The looser grasp Jarlaxle seemed to prefer, the little ridge that stiffened along the bottom of his cock when he was particularly enjoying something. Artemis slid a sheath onto him about halfway through, having picked up some of the fancy textured ones from the market in Devk. 

“Oh, those are new.” Jarlaxle kneaded his arms, toes curling. 

“I thought you might like them.” 

He did, very much, if the speed at which he reached his pleasure was anything to go by. Jarlaxle clung to him after, grip gradually easing. Artemis waited, letting him get his breath back and rubbing small circles on his shoulder. And taking the time to master himself, calm his aching desires. He wanted to be inside him, very badly. He also wanted to take his time about things. Jarlaxle plainly did not if his squirming and pulling and undercommon growling was anything to go by. 

“Impatient.” But he relented. Jarlaxle shifted, tilting his hips up. He gripped one tight to guide himself in, gasping despite all his determination to the contrary. The sheer pleasure of it caught him off guard no matter how he tried. And though Artemis was near overwhelmed by the sensation, Jarlaxle seemed even more so, for he responded with a breathy chest-deep gasping and cursed something savage. 

“Well, if you dislike this so much-” he braced his elbows on the bedroll and shifted back as if to pull out entirely. 

“Don’t you dare!” 

“Remind me what you like.” 

Jarlaxle only sighed, and ran his hands the length of his back from shoulder to hip. Strange, to feel those arms around him without twenty separate bangles. And there was something in how he did so, something clever in the pressure of his fingers that made his whole spine tingle. He groaned into Jarlaxle’s shoulder, and decided to nibble his ears given that he was in the right general area. The drow hummed, muscles flexing around him. 

“That nice, mm?”

“Xas.” Jarlaxle cupped the back of his head, covering the soft place where neck and skull joined, and tilted to purr into his ear. “Faster, abbil.” 

All thoughts of pacing himself dissolved, much to Jarlaxle's moaned delight. Hands slipped into his hair once more, and he had never much liked having anyone touch him but it was so very different when they gasped like that. The drow hitched once, twice, and he lowered his head to murmur to him as he came again. It seemed to take him so differently now, as if the blindfold did more than heighten sensation. Artemis braced himself as the Jarlaxle's climax carried him over, let himself fade into bliss for a time afterwards. 

But only for a time. The drow blinked up at him as he slipped the mask off, girding himself for some kind of negative reaction. But the drow only smiled and tilted his head into his hand, murmuring something low and content in undercommon. That stayed with him as sleep came, and the warmth of being two rather than one curled together in the dark.

They reached the coast three days later. 

“This is the sea? It's as big as the desert!” Estactic, Jarlaxle immediately bounced down towards the water. Artemis followed slowly after, knowing there was no need to hurry. Jarlaxle stopped to look at every rock and crab and piece of seaweed.

The beach up here was so flat as to be near horizontal, with a good mile of beach to walk down before reaching the water. Artemis turned his face into the wind, enjoying the cold. It wouldn’t last long. Chill temperatures made him irritable and sore. But for now it was cold, and the grey stone beach a welcome change from the blistering light of the desert, and the low clouds overhead seemed determined to protect them from all prying eyes. And besides that Jarlaxle had foisted a new cloak upon him, a very fine garment of soft grey wool. It warmed him nearly as much as the drow himself did.

He drew it tighter around his shoulders as Jarlaxle entertained himself chasing the waves on the edge of the water. The drow rapidly learned their rhythmic nature, screeching as the water splashed up over his boots. 

“I warned you, it breathes.”

Arlath was a good weeks walk up the coast from here, a grey and gloomy city carved from rock and whalebone. It was a long journey along the black beach, with nothing but the ocean and the sparse forest to occupy his mind. Unless he decided to keep traveling with Jarlaxle, of course. It wasn't that he _needed_ to, strictly. But it did have its advantages. 

“Abbil, look! I caught something!”

He turned to see Jarlaxle holding his hat like a sieve, a wriggling silver fish splashing about inside. Enough to startle a laugh out of him. He hadn’t laughed in some time, not like this. And he was just fast enough to see Jarlaxle grin briefly, a burst of genuine pleasure at the sound of his voice, at the very sight of him smiling. 

There was surely no harm in traveling together for a _little_ bit longer. 

...

The End!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! It's been lovely to write for such a close-knit and interactive community. I plan to continue with one-shots and short drabbles in future. 
> 
> Take care of yourselves and each other! <3


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